of  California 
Regional 
Facility 


n 


'The  Ceremony  of  Preparing  the  Holy  Oil 

Photogravure.  —  From  Drawing  by  Martiri 


3Uustrateli  Hjtbrary  lEiittinn 


MY   CONFESSION 

DOGMATIC  THEOLOGY 

MY  RELIGION 

ON  LIFE 


By 
COUNT  LEV  N.   TOLSTOY 


Translated  from  the  Original  Russian 
and  edited  by 

PROFESSOR  LEO  WIENER 


D05T0N 

COLONIAL  PRESS  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  ig04 
By  Dana  Estes  &  Company 


Entered  at  Stationers^  Hall 


Colonial    Press  :    Electrotyped  and    Printed    by 
C.  H.  Simonds  &  Co.,  Boston,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

My  Confession  :    Introduction  to  the  Critique  of 
Dogmatic  Theology    and  Investigation  of  the 

Christian  Teaching         ......  3 

CRITIQUE   OF   DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

Preface 93 

First  Part 98 

Second  Part 239 

Conclusion 431 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

The  Ceremony  of  Preparing  the  Holy  Oil  {p.  380) 

Frontis]nece 

The  Metropolitan  Filaret 97 

Kiev  Monastery 413 


Tolstoy  writing  in  his  Study 6 

Tolstoy's  House  at  Moscow 221 


Vol.  7. 


MY    CONFESSION 

Introduction  to  the  Critique  of  Dogmatic  The- 
ology and  Investigation  of  the  Christian 
Teaching 

1879-1882 


4  MY    CONFESSION 

that  informatiou  as  something  exceedingly  interesting  and 
quite  probable. 

I  also  remember  how,  when  my  eldest  brother,  Dmitri, 
who  was  a  student  at  the  university,  suddenly  with 
a  passion  which  was  characteristic  of  his  nature  aban- 
doned himself  to  faith  and  began  to  attend  all  the  serv- 
ices, to  fast,  and  to  lead  a  pure  and  moral  hfe,  all 
of  us,  even  the  grown  persons,  never  stopped  making 
him  a  butt  of  ridicule,  and  for  some  reason  called  him 
Noah.  I  remember  how  Miisin-Pushkin,  who  at  that 
time  was  the  Curator  of  the  Kazan  University  and  who 
invited  us  to  come  to  a  dance  at  his  house,  tried  in  jest 
to  persuade  my  brother,  who  dechned  to  come,  by  telling 
him  that  even  David  had  danced  before  the  ark.  At 
that  time  I  sympathized  with  the  jests  of  my  elders  and 
deduced  the  conclusion  from  it  that  the  Catechism  ought 
to  be  taught,  that  church  ought  to  be  attended,  but  that 
all  that  ought  not  to  be  taken  too  seriously.  I  also 
remember  that  I  was  very  young  when  I  read  Voltaire, 
and  that  his  ridicule  not  only  did  not  provoke  me,  but 
even  amused  me  very  much. 

My  defection  from  faith  took  place  in  the  same  manner 
as  it  has  taken  place  and  still  takes  place  in  people  of 
our  cultivated  class.  In  the  majority  of  cases  it  happens 
hke  this,  I  think :  people  live  as  everybody  else  lives, 
and  everybody  else  lives  on  the  basis  of  principles  that 
not  only  have  nothing  in  common  with  the  religious  teach- 
ing, but  generally  run  counter  to  it ;  the  religious  teaching 
does  not  enter  into  life,  and  in  one's  relation  with  other 
people  one  never  has  occasion  to  come  across  it,  and  in 
one's  own  life  one  never  has  occasion  to  refer  to  it ;  this 
religious  teaching  is  professed  somewhere  there,  far  away 
from  life  and  independently  of  it.  If  you  come  in  con- 
tact with  it,  it  is  with  its  external  phenomenon,  which 
is  not  connected  with  life. 

From  a  man's  life,  from  his  acts,  it  is  impossible  now, 


MY    CONFESSION  0 

as  it  was  then,  to  find  out  whether  he  is  a  behever  or 
not.  If  there  is  a  (liU'ereuce  between  one  who  openly 
professes  Orthodoxy  and  one  who  denies  it,  it  is  not  in 
favour  of  the  first.  The  open  recognition  and  profession 
of  Orthodoxy  has  generally  been  met  with  in  dull,  cruel, 
and  self-important  people,  while  intelligence,  honesty, 
straightforwardness,  gooil-heartedness,  and  morality  are 
generally  met  with  in  pecjple  who  profess  to  be  unbe- 
lievers. 

In  the  schools  the  pupils  are  taught  the  Catechism 
and  are  sent  to  church ;  officials  have  to  show  certificates 
of  haviug  received  their  communion.  But  a  man  of  our 
circle,  who  is  no  longer  studying  and  is  not  holding  a 
government  position,  may  nowadays  pass  dozens  of  years, 
—  and  formerly  that  was  even  more  the  case,  —  without 
thinking  once  that  he  is  living  among  Christians  and 
himself  is  professing  the  Christian  Orthodox  faith. 

Thus,  now  as  then,  the  religious  teaching,  which  is 
accepted  through  confidence  and  is  supported  through 
external  pressure,  slowly  melts  under  the  influence  of 
knowledge  and  the  experiences  of  life,  which  are  contrary 
to  the  religious  teaching,  and  a  man  frequently  goes  on 
imagining  that  the  religious  teaching  with  which  he  has 
been  imbued  in  childhood  is  in  full  force  in  him,  whereas 
there  is  not  even  a  trace  left  of  it. 

S ,  an  intelligent  and  truthful  man,  told  me  how 

he  came  to  stop  believing.  When  he  was  twenty-six  years 
old  he  once  at  a  night's  rest  during  the  chase  followed 
his  old  habit,  acquired  in  his  childhood,  and  stood  up  to 
pray.     His  elder  brother,  who  took  part  in  the  chase,  was 

lying  on  the  hay  and  looking  at  him.      When  S got 

through  and  was  about  to  lie  down,  he  said  to  him :  "  So 
you  are  stni  doing  these  things  ? " 

That  was   all  that  was  said.     And  S that  very 

day  quit  praying  and  attending  church.  Thirty  years 
have  passed  since  he  stopped  praying,  receiving  the  com- 


6  MY    CONFESSION 

munion,  and  going  to  church.  Not  that  he  knew  the 
convictions  of  his  brother  and  had  joined  them,  not  that 
he  had  decided  on  anything  in  his  mind,  but  only  because 
the  sentence  which  his  brother  had  uttered  was  hke  the 
pressure  exerted  with  a  finger  against  a  wall  which  was 
ready  to  fall  of  its  own  weight ;  the  sentence  was  merely 
an  indication  that  where  he  thought  there  was  faith  there 
had  long  been  a  vacant  spot,  and  that,  therefore,  the  words 
which  he  spoke  and  the  signs  of  the  cross  and  the  obei- 
sances which  he  made  during  his  praying  were  quite 
meaningless  actions.  Since  he  had  come  to  recognize 
their  meaiduglessuess,  he  could  not  keep  them  up  any 
loucfer. 

Thus  it  has  always  been  with  an  enormous  majority  of 
people.  I  am  speaking  of  people  of  our  degree  of  culture, 
of  people  who  are  true  to  themselves,  and  not  of  those 
who  use  the  very  subject  of  faith  as  a  means  for  obtaining 
any  temporary  ends.  (These  people  are  most  confirmed 
unbelievers,  for,  if  the  faith  is  to  them  a  means  for  obtain- 
ing any  social  advantages,  it  is  no  longer  faith.)  The 
people  of  our  degree  of  education  are  in  that  condition 
when  the  light  of  knowledge  and  of  life  has  melted  the 
artificial  structure,  and  they  have  either  noticed  it  and 
have  cleared  the  place,  or  have  not  yet  noticed  it. 

The  religious  teaching  which  was  imparted  to  me  in 
my  childhood  disappeared  in  me  just  as  in  others,  with 
this  difference  only  that,  since  I  began  to  read  philosoph- 
ical works  at  fifteen  years  of  age,  my  apostasy  very  early 
became  conscious.  With  my  sixteenth  year  I  quit  pray- 
ing and  through  my  own  initiative  stopped  attending 
church  and  preparing  myself  for  communion.  I  did  not 
beheve  in  what  I  had  been  told  in  my  childhood,  but 
I  believed  in  sometliing.  I  should  never  have  been  able 
to  say  what  it  was  I  beheved  in.  I  believed  in  God,  or, 
more  correctly,  I  did  not  deny  God,  but  what  kind  of  a 
God,  I  should  have  been  at  a  loss  to  say.    Nor  did  I  deny 


MY    CONFESSION  7 

Christ  and  his  teaching,  hut  what  his  teaching  consisted 
in,  I  should  also  have  been  at  a  loss  to  say. 

Now,  as  I  recall  that  time,  I  see  clearly  that  my  faith, 
that  something  which,  outside  the  animal  instincts,  moved 
my  life,  my  only,  real  faith  at  that  time  was  a  belief  in 
perfection.  But  what  that  perfection  consisted  in,  or  what 
its  aims  were,  I  should  have  been  unable  to  say.  I  tried  to 
perfect  myself  mentally,  —  I  studied  every  tiling  that  I 
could  and  that  life  brought  me  in  contact  with  ;  I  tried  to 
perfect  my  will  and  formed  rules  which  I  tried  to  follow ; 
I  perfected  myself  physically,  prompting  my  strength  and 
agility  with  all  kinds  of  exercises,  and  practising  endur- 
ance and  patience  in  all  kinds  of  privations.  All  that  I 
regarded  as  perfection.  At  first  it  was,  of  course,  moral 
perfection,  but  soon  it  was  changed  to  perfection  in  gen- 
eral, that  is,  to  a  desire  to  be  better,  not  before  myself  or 
before  God,  but  before  other  people.  And  soon  that  tend- 
ency to  be  better  before  people  gave  place  to  a  desire  to 
be  stronger  than  other  people,  that  is,  more  famous,  more 
influential,  richer  than  others. 


11. 

Some  day  I  will  tell  the  history  of  my  life,  —  it  is  both 
touching  and  instructive,  —  for  those  ten  years  of  my 
youth.  I  think  many,  very  many,  have  experienced  the 
same.  I  wished  with  all  my  heart  to  be  good  ;  but  I  was 
young,  I  had  passions,  and  I  was  alone,  completely  alone, 
when  I  was  trying  to  find  the  good.  Every  time  I  en- 
deavoured to  give  utterance  to  what  formed  my  most  inti- 
mate wishes,  namely,  that  I  wished  to  be  morally  good,  I 
met  with  contempt  and  ridicule  ;  and  the  moment  I  sur- 
rendered myself  to  the  abominable  passions,  I  was  praised 
and  encouraged. 

Ambition,  lust  of  power,  selfishness,  voluptuousness, 
pride,  anger,  revenge,  —  all  that  was  respected.  By  aban- 
doning myself  to  these  passions  I  became  like  a  grown 
person,  and  I  felt  that  people  were  satisfied  with  me.  A 
good  aunt  of  mine,  a  pure  soul,  with  whom  I  was  hving, 
kept  telling  me  that  there  was  nothing  she  wished  so 
much  for  me  as  that  I  should  have  a  liaison  with  a  mar- 
ried woman  :  "  Rien  ne  fortne  un  jeune  homme,  comme  une 
liaison  avec  ic7ie  femnne  comme  il  faut ;  "  there  was  another 
piece  of  luck  she  wished  for  me,  and  that  was  that  I  should 
be  an  adjutant,  preferably  an  adjutant  to  the  emperor ; 
and  the  greatest  piece  of  luck,  that  1  might  marry  a  very 
rich  girl  so  that,  in  consequence  of  this  marriage,  I  might 
have  a  very  large  number  of  slaves. 

I  cannot  recall  those  years  without  dread,  loathing,  and 

anguish  of  heart.     I  killed  people  in  war  and  challenged 

to  duels  to  kill ;  I  lost  money  at  cards,  wasting  the  labour 

8 


MY    CONFESSION  9 

of  the  peasants  ;  I  punished  them,  fornicated,  and  cheated. 
Lying,  steahng,  acts  of  hist  of  every  description,  drunken- 
ness, violence,  murder  —  There  was  not  a  crime  which  I 
did  not  commit,  and  for  all  that  I  was  praised,  and  my 
contemporaries  have  regarded  me  as  a  comparatively 
moral  man. 

Thus  I  lived  for  ten  years. 

At  that  time  I  began  to  write  through  vanity,  avarice, 
and  pride.  In  my  writings  I  did  the  same  as  in  life.  In 
order  to  have  glory  and  money,  for  which  I  wrote,  I  had 
to  conceal  what  was  good  and  speak  what  was  bad.  And 
so  I  did.  How  often  I  managed  to  conceal  in  ray  wri- 
tings, under  the  aspect  of  indifference  and  even  light  ridi- 
cule, those  strivings  of  mine  after  the  good,  which  formed 
the  meaning  of  my  life.  I  was  successful  in  that,  and  I 
was  praised. 

When  I  was  twenty-six  years  old,  I  arrived  in  St. 
Petersburg  after  the  war,  and  there  came  in  contact  with 
authors.  I  was  received  like  one  of  their  own,  and  was 
flattered.  Before  I  had  time  to  look  around,  the  conven- 
tional literary  views  of  life,  which  these  persons  whom  I 
met  held,  were  appropriated  by  me  and  completely  wiped 
out  all  my  former  attempts  to  become  better.  These 
views  furnished  the  looseness  of  my  morals  with  a  theory 
which  justified  it. 

The  view  of  life  which  these  people,  my  literary  fel- 
lows, held,  consisted  in  stating  that  life  was  all  the  time 
developing,  and  that  in  this  development  the  chief  part 
was  taken  by  us,  the  men  of  ideas,  and  that  among  these 
men  of  ideas  the  greatest  influence  was  exerted  by  us, 
artists  and  poets.  Our  calling  was  to  teach  people.  In 
order  that  the  natural  question,  "  What  do  I  know,  and 
what  shall  I  teach  ?  "  might  not  present  itself  to  one,  this 
theory  explained  that  it  was  not  necessary  to  know  that, 
and  that  an  artist  and  poet  taught  unconsciously.  I  was 
considered  a  marvellous  artist  and  poet,  and  so  it  was  quite 


10  MY    CONFESSION 

natural  for  me  to  make  this  theory  my  own.  I,  the  artist 
and  poet,  wrote  and  taught,  myself  not  knowing  what. 
For  this  I  was  paid,  and  I  had  excellent  food,  quarters, 
women,  society ;  I  had  fame.  Consequently,  what  I 
taught  was  very  good. 

Faith  in  the  meaning  of  poetry  and  in  progress  in  life 
was  a  creed,  and  I  was  one  of  its  priests.  It  was  very 
agreeable  and  profitable  to  be  its  priest,  and  I  lived  for  a 
long  time  in  that  belief,  never  doubting  its  truth.  But  in 
the  second  and,  especially,  in  the  third  year  of  that  life  I 
began  to  have  my  doubts  about  the  infallibility  of  that 
faith,  and  started  to  investigate  it.  What  gave  me  the 
first  impulse  to  these  misgivings  was  the  fact,  which  I 
noticed,  that  all  those  priests  were  not  at  one  among 
themselves.  Some  said  :  "  We  are  the  best  and  most  use- 
ful teachers ;  we  teach  what  is  necessary,  but  the  others 
teach  incorrectly."  And  others  said  :  "  No,  we  are  the  real 
ones,  but  you  teach  incorrectly."  And  they  cUsputed, 
quarrelled,  scolded,  cheated,  and  deceived  each  other. 
Besides,  there  were  many  people  among  us  who  did  not 
trouble  themselves  to  find  out  who  was  right  and  who 
wrong,  but  who  simply  attained  their  selfish  ends  by 
means  of  that  activity  of  ours.  All  that  made  me  doubt 
the  truth  of  our  faith. 

Besides,  having  lost  faith  in  the  truth  of  my  literary 
creed,  I  began  to  observe  the  priests  more  closely,  and  I 
convinced  myself  that  nearly  all  the  priests  of  that  faith, 
the  authors,  were  immoral  people  and,  for  the  most  part, 
bad  people,  insignificant  as  to  their  character,  who  stood 
much  lower  than  those  men  whom  I  used  to  meet  in  my 
former  riotous  and  military  life ;  but  they  were  self- 
confident  and  self-satisfied,  as  only  such  men  can  be  who 
either  are  great  saints  or  who  do  not  know  what  sanctity 
is.  I  got  sick  of  those  people,  and  I  got  sick  of  myself, 
and  I  understood  that  that  faith  was  a  deception. 

But  what  is  strange  is  that,  although  I  soon  compre- 


MY    CONFESSION  11 

hended  all  that  lying  faith  and  renounced  it,  I  did  not 
leuuuuce  the  rank  wliich  1  was  given  by  those  men, — 
that  of  artist,  poet,  teacher.  I  naively  imagined  that  I 
was  a  poet,  an  artist,  and  that  I  could  teach  others,  not 
knowing  myself  what  I  was  teaching.  That  was  what  I 
did. 

From  my  association  with  these  people  I  carried  away 
a  new  vice,  —  a  morbidly  developed  pride  and  an  insane 
conviction  that  I  was  called  to  teach  people,  myself  not 
knowing  what. 

Now  that  I  think  of  that  time,  of  ray  mental  state,  and 
of  the  mental  state  of  those  men  (however,  there  are 
thousands  of  such  even  nowadays),  1  feel  pity,  and  terror, 
and  amusement ;  there  arises  precisely  the  feeling  that 
one  experiences  in  a  madhouse. 

We  were  all  convinced  at  that  time  that  we  must  talk 
and  talk,  and  write,  and  print,  as  fast  as  possible,  and  that 
that  was  necessary  for  the  good  of  humanity.  And  thou- 
sands of  us,  denying  and  cursing  one  another,  printed  and 
wrote,  teaching  others.  And,  without  noticing  that  we 
knew  nothing,  that  to  the  simplest  question  of  hfe,  — 
what  is  good,  and  what  bad,  —  we  did  not  know  what 
answer  to  give,  we  all  spoke  together,  without  listening  to 
our  neighbours,  and  now  and  then  encouraged  and  praised 
each  other,  so  that  we,  too,  might  be  encouraged  and 
praised,  and  now  and  then  were  irritated  toward  one 
another,  precisely  as  in  a  madliouse. 

Thousands  of  workmen  day  and  night  worked  with  all 
their  strength,  setting  type  and  printing  millions  of  words, 
and  the  post-office  spread  them  all  over  Russia,  and  we 
proceeded  to  teach,  and  did  not  have  time  enough  to 
teach  everything,  and  kept  growing  angry  because  little 
attention  was  paid  to  us. 

It  is  all  very  strange,  but  now  it  is  easy  to  understand. 
Our  real,  intimate  calculation  was  that  we  wanted  to  get 
as  much  money  and  praise  as  possible.     In  order  to  ob- 


12  MY    CONFESSION 

tain  this  end  we  had  nothing  to  do  but  write  books  and 
newspaper  articles.  And  that  we  did.  But,  iu  order  to 
do  such  a  useless  piece  of  work  and  be  confident  that  we 
were  very  important  people,  we  needed  a  consideration 
which  would  justify  our  activity,  and  so  we  concocted 
the  following :  everything  which  exists  is  reasonable. 
Everything  which  exists  develops ;  everything  is  de- 
veloped by  means  of  culture ;  culture  is  measured  by  the 
dissemination  of  books  and  newspapers.  We  are  paid 
and  respected  for  v/riting  books  and  newspapers,  conse- 
quently we  are  most  useful  and  good  men.  This  reflec- 
tion would  have  been  very  nice,  if  all  of  us  had  been  of 
one  mind ;  but,  since  for  every  idea,  expressed  by  one 
man,  there  always  appeared  another  idea,  diametrically 
opposed  to  the  first,  as  expressed  by  another,  that  ought 
to  have  made  us  reflect.  But  we  did  not  observe  that ; 
we  received  money,  and  the  men  belonging  to  our  party 
praised  us,  consequently  we  every  one  of  us  considered 
ourselves  in  the  right. 

Now  it  is  clear  to  me  that  there  was  no  difference 
between  that  and  a  madhouse  ;  but  at  that  time  I  only 
dimly  suspected  that,  and,  like  all  insane  persons,  called 
everybody  insane  but  myself. 


IIL 

Thus  I  lived,  abandoning  myself  to  that  insanity  for 
six  years  longer,  until  my  marriage.  During  that  time  I 
went  abroad.  My  life  in  Europe  and  my  associations 
with  prominent  men  and  scholars  in  Europe  confirmed 
me  even  more  in  that  faith  of  perfection  in  general,  in 
which  I  was  living,  because  I  found  the  same  faith  in 
others.  This  faith  assumed  with  me  that  customary 
form  which  it  has  with  the  majority  of  cultured  people 
of  our  time.  This  faith  was  expressed  by  the  word 
''■  progress."  At  that  time  I  thought  that  that  word  ex- 
pressed something.  I  did  not  yet  understand  then  that, 
tormented,  like  any  live  man,  by  the  questions  as  to  how 
to  live  in  the  best  manner  possible,  I,  by  saying  that  I 
ought  to  do  so  in  conformity  with  progress,  was  giving 
the  same  kind  of  an  answer  that  a  man  might  give,  who, 
being  borne  in  a  bark  by  the  waves  and  by  the  wind,  to 
the  one  important  question  of  whither  to  keep  his  course, 
should  not  reply  to  the  question,  but  should  say :  "  We 
are  being  borne  somewhere." 

At  that  time  I  did  not  notice  it.  Only  now  and  then, 
not  my  reason,  but  my  feeling,  revolted  against  that  com- 
mon superstition  of  our  time,  with  which  people  veil 
from  themselves  the  comprehension  of  life.  Thus,  dur- 
ing my  stay  in  Paris,  the  sight  of  a  capital  punishment 
showed  me  the  frailty  of  my  superstition  of  progress. 
When  I  saw  the  head  severed  from  the  body,  and  both 
falling  separately  with  a  thud  into  a  box,  I  understood, 

not  with  my  reason,  but  with  my  whole  being,  that  no 

13 


14  MY   CONFESSION 

theories  of  the  reasonableness  of  everything  existing  and 
of  progress  could  justify  that  deed,  and  that  if  all  men 
on  earth,  beginning  with  the  creation,  had  some  theory 
which  made  this  necessary,  —  I  knew  that  it  was  not 
necessary,  that  it  was  bad,  and  that,  therefore,  not  what 
people  said  and  did,  and  not  progress,  but  I  with  my 
heart  was  the  judge  of  what  was  good  and  necessary. 
Another  occasion  which  made  me  conscious  of  the  iri- 
sufhciency  for  Hfe  of  the  superstition  of  progress  was 
the  death  of  my  brother.  An  intelligent,  good,  serious 
man,  he  grew  sick  when  he  was  young,  suffered  for 
more  than  a  year,  and  died  an  agonizing  death,  without 
comprehending  what  he  had  lived  for,  and  still  less  why 
he  should  die.  No  theories  could  give  any  answers 
either  to  me  or  to  him,  during  his  slow  and  painful 
death.  But  those  were  only  rare  cases  of  doubt;  in 
reahty  I  continued  to  live  professing  the  faith  of  prog- 
ress. "  Everything  develops,  and  I,  too,  am  develop- 
ing; why  I  am  developing  with  the  rest,  will  appear 
later."  That  is  the  way  I  ought  to  have  then  formu- 
lated my  faith. 

When  I  returned  from  abroad,  I  settled  in  the  country 
and  hit  upon  busying  myself  with  the  peasant  schools. 
That  occupation  was  particularly  to  my  hking,  because  in 
it  there  was  not  that  apparent  lie  which  had  appalled  me 
in  the  activity  of  my  hterary  teachership.  Here  also  I 
worked  in  the  name  of  progress,  but  this  time  I  assumed 
a  critical  attitude  toward  progress.  I  said  to  myself  that 
progress  in  some  of  its  manifestations  took  place  irregu- 
larly, and  that  it  was  necessary  to  treat  the  primitive 
men,  the  peasant  children,  in  a  free  way,  by  letting  them 
choose  the  path  of  progress  which  they  wished.  In  real- 
ity, I  was  still  gyrating  around  one  and  the  same  insolu- 
ble problem,  which  was  that  I  should  teach  not  knowing 
what.  In  the  higher  spheres  of  my  literary  activity  I 
saw  that  it  was  not  possible  to  teach  not  knowing  what 


MY    CONFESSION  15 

to  teach,  because  I  observed  that  everybody  was  teaching 
in  his  own  way,  and  that  by  disputing  aiuong  themselves 
the  men  tried  to  conceal  their  ignorance ;  but  here,  with 
the  peasant  children,  I  thought  that  the  difficulty  might 
be  obviated  by  leaving  it  to  the  children  to  learn  what 
they  pleased.  Now  it  is  ludicrous  for  me  to  think  how  I 
temporized  in  order  to  gratify  my  desire  to  teach,  although 
in  the  depth  of  my  soul  1  laiew  full  well  that  1  could  not 
teach  what  was  necessary,  because  I  did  not  myself  know 
what  was  necessary.  After  a  year  passed  in  occupations 
with  the  school,  I  went  abroad  again,  in  order  to  learn 
there  how,  without  knowing  anything  myself,  I  might 
teach  others. 

I  thought  that  I  learned  that  abroad,  and,  armed  with 
all  that  wisdom,  I  returned  to  Russia  in  the  year  of  the 
liberation  of  the  serfs  and,  accepting  the  position  of  a  rural 
judge,  I  began  to  teach  the  uneducated  masses  in  the 
schools  and  the  educated  people  in  the  periodical  which 
I  published.  Things  apparently  went  well,  but  I  felt 
that  I  was  mentally  not  quite  well  and  that  it  would  not 
last  long.  I  might  have  arrived  even  then  at  that  despair 
at  which  I  arrived  fifteen  years  later,  if  I  had  not  had 
another  side  of  life,  which  I  had  not  yet  explored  and 
which  promised  me  salvation,  —  my  domestic  life. 

For  a  year  I  acted  as  a  rural  judge  and  busied  myself 
with  my  schools  and  my  periodical,  and  I  wi.s  so  worn 
out,  especially  because  I  became  so  much  involved,  and 
my  struggle  in  my  capacity  as  rural  judge  was  so  oppres- 
sive to  me,  and  my  activity  in  the  schools  was  so  pale, 
and  I  grew  so  tired  of  wagging  my  tongue  in  my  periodi- 
cal, which  still  consisted  in  the  same  thing,  —  in  the 
desire  to  teach  others  and  conceal  the  fact  that  I  did  not 
know  what  to  teach,  —  that  I  grew  sick,  mentally  rather 
than  physically,  and  gave  up  everytliing  and  went  to  live 
with  the  Bashkirs  of  the  steppe,  —  to  breathe  the  airj 
drink  kumys,  and  live  an  animal  life. 


16  MY    CONFESSION 

When  I  came  back,  I  got  married.  The  new  condi- 
tions of  my  happy  family  hfe  completely  drew  me  away 
from  all  search  for  the  general  meaning  of  Hfe,  All  my 
life  during  that  time  was  centred  in  my  family,  my  wife, 
my  children,  and,  therefore,  in  cares  for  the  increase  of 
the  means  of  existence.  The  striving  after  perfection, 
which  before  had  given  way  to  the  striving  after  perfec- 
tion in  general,  after  progress,  now  gave  way  simply  to 
the  striving  after  making  it  as  comfortable  as  possible  for 
me  and  my  family. 

Thus  another  fifteen  years  passed. 

Although  I  regarded  authorship  as  a  waste  of  time,  I 
continued  to  write  during  those  fifteen  years.  I  had  tasted 
of  the  seduction  of  authorship,  of  the  seduction  of  enor- 
mous monetary  remunerations  and  applauses  for  my  insig- 
nificant labour,  and  so  I  submitted  to  it,  as  being  a  means 
for  improving  my  material  condition  and  for  stifling  in 
my  soul  all  questions  about  the  meaning  of  my  hfe  and 
life  in  general. 

In  my  writings  I  advocated,  what  to  me  was  the  only 
truth,  that  it  was  necessary  to  live  in  such  a  way  as  to 
derive  the  greatest  comfort  for  oneself  and  one's  family. 

Thus  I  proceeded  to  live,  but  five  years  ago  something 
very  strange  began  to  happen  with  me :  I  was  overcome 
by  minutes  at  first  of  perplexity  and  then  of  an  arrest  of 
life,  as  tl  ough  I  did  not  know  how  to  live  or  what  to 
do,  and  I  lost  myself  and  was  dejected.  But  that  passed, 
and  I  continued  to  live  as  before.  Then  those  minutes 
of  perplexity  were  repeated  oftener  and  oftener,  and  al- 
ways in  one  and  the  same  form.  These  arrests  of  life 
found  their  expression  in  ever  the  same  questions :  "  Why  ? 
Well,  and  then  ? " 

At  first  I  thought  that  those  were  simply  aimless, 
inappropriate  questions.  It  seemed  to  me  that  that  was 
all  well  known  and  that  if  I  ever  wanted  to  busy  myself 
with  their  solution,  it  would  not  cost  me  much  labour,  — 


MY    CONFESSION  17 

that  now  I  had  no  time  to  attend  to  them,  but  that  if  I 
wanted  to  I  should  find  the  proper  answers.  But  the 
questions  began  to  repeat  themselves  oftener  and  oftener, 
answers  were  demanded  more  and  more  persistently,  and, 
like  dots  that  fall  on  the  same  spot,  these  questions,  with- 
out any  answers,  thickened  into  one  black  blotch. 

There  happened  what  happens  with  any  person  who 
falls  ill  with  a  mortal  internal  disease.  At  first  there 
appear  insignificant  symptoms  of  indisposition,  to  which 
the  patient  pays  no  attention  ;  then  these  symptoms  are 
repeated  more  and  more  frequently  and  blend  into  one 
temporally  indivisible  suffering.  The  suffering  keeps 
growing,  and  before  the  patient  has  had  time  to  look 
around,  he  becomes  conscious  that  what  he  took  for  an 
indisposition  is  the  most  significant  thing  in  the  world  to 
him,  —  is  death. 

The  same  happened  with  me.  I  understood  that  it  was 
not  a  passing  indisposition,  but  something  very  important, 
and  that,  if  the  questions  were  going  to  repeat  themselves, 
it  would  be  uecessary  to  find  an  answer  for  them.  And 
I  tried  to  answer  them.  The  questions  seemed  to  be  so 
foolish,  simple,  and  childish.  But  the  moment  I  touched 
them  and  tried  to  solve  them,  I  became  convinced,  in  the 
first  place,  that  they  were  not  childish  and  foolish,  but 
very  important  and  profound  questions  in  life,  and,  in 
the  second,  that,  no  matter  how  much  I  might  try,  I 
should  not  be  able  to  answer  them.  Before  attending  to 
my  Samara  estate,  to  my  son's  education,  or  to  the  writ- 
ing of  a  book,  I  ought  to  know  why  I  should  do  that. 
So  long  as  I  did  not  know  why,  I  could  not  do  anything, 
I  could  not  live.  Amidst  my  thoughts  of  farming,  which 
interested  me  very  much  during  that  time,  there  would 
suddenly  pass  through  my  head  a  question  like  this  :  "  All 
right,  you  are  going  to  have  six  thousand  desyatmas  of 
land  in  the  Government  of  Samara,  and  three  hundred 
horses,  —  and  then  ? "     And  I  completely  lost  my  senses 


18  MY    CONFESSION 

and  did  not  know  what  to  think  farther.  Or,  when  I 
thought  of  the  education  of  my  children,  I  said  to  my- 
self :  "  Why  ?  "  Or,  reflecting  on  the  manner  in  which  the 
masses  might  obtain  their  welfare,  I  suddenly  said  to 
myself  :  "  What  is  that  to  me  ? "  Or,  thinking  of  the 
fame  which  my  works  would  get  me,  I  said  to  myself : 
"  All  right,  you  will  be  more  famous  than  Gogol,  Pushkin, 
Shakespeare,  MoH^re,  and  all  the  writers  in  the  world,  — 
what  of  it  ? "  And  I  was  absolutely  unable  to  make  any 
reply.  The  questions  were  not  waiting,  and  I  had  to 
answer  them  at  once ;  if  I  did  not  answer  them,  I  could 
not  live. 

I  felt  that  what  I  was  standing  on  had  given  way,  that 
I  had  no  foundation  to  stand  on,  that  that  which  I  lived 
by  no  longer  existed,  and  that  I  had  nothing  to  live  by. 


IV. 

My  life  came  to  a  .standstill.  I  could  breathe,  eat,  drink, 
and  sleep,  and  could  not  help  breathing,  eating,  drinking, 
and  sleeping  ;  but  there  was  no  life,  because  there  were 
no  desires  the  gratification  of  which  I  might  find  reason- 
able. If  I  wished  for  anything,  I  knew  in  advance  that, 
whether  I  gi-atified  my  desire  or  not,  nothing  would  come 
of  it.  If  a  fairy  had  come  and  had  offered  to  carry  out 
my  wish,  I  should  not  have  known  what  to  say.  If  in 
moments  of  intoxication  I  had,  not  wishes,  but  habits  of 
former  desires,  I  knew  in  sober  moments  that  that  was  a 
deception,  that  there  was  nothing  to  wish  for.  I  could 
not  even  wish  to  find  out  the  truth,  because  I  guessed 
what  it  consisted  in.  The  truth  was  that  life  was  mean- 
ingless. It  was  as  though  I  had  just  been  living  and 
walking  along,  and  had  come  to  an  abyss,  where  I  saw 
clearly  that  there  was  nothing  ahead  but  perdition.  And 
it  was  impossible  to  stop  and  go  back,  and  impossible  to 
shut  my  eyes,  in  order  that  I  might  not  see  that  there 
was  nothing  ahead  but  suffering  and  imminent  death,  — 
complete  annihilation. 

What  happened  to  me  was  that  I,  a  healthy,  happy 
man,  felt  that  I  could  not  go  on  living,  —  an  insurmount- 
able force  drew  me  on  to  find  release  from  life.  I  cannot 
say  that  I  tvanted  to  kill  myself. 

The  force  which  drew  me  away  from  life  was  stronger, 
fuller,  more  general  than  wishing.  It  was  a  force  like 
the  former  striving  after  life,  only  in  an  inverse  sense.  I 
tended  with  all  my  strength  away  from  life.     The  thought 

19 


20  MY    CONFESSION 

of  suicide  came  as  naturally  to  me  as  had  come  before  the 
ideas  of  improving  life.  That  thought  was  so  seductive 
that  I  had  to  use  cunning  against  myself,  lest  I  should 
rashly  execute  it.  I  did  not  want  to  be  in  a  hurry, 
because  I  wanted  to  use  every  effort  to  disentangle  my- 
self :  "if  I  should  not  succeed  in  disentangling  myself, 
there  would  always  be  time  for  that.  And  at  such  times 
I,  a  happy  man,  hid  a  rope  from  myself  so  that  I  should 
not  hang  myself  on  a  cross-beam  between  two  safes  in 
my  room,  where  I  was  by  myself  iu  the  evening,  while 
taking  off  my  clothes,  and  did  not  go  out  hunting  with  a 
gun,  in  order  not  to  be  tempted  by  an  easy  way  of  doing 
away  with  myself.  I  did  not  know  myself  what  it  was 
I  wanted :  I  was  afraid  of  Hfe,  strove  to  get  away  from  it, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  expected  something  from  it. 

All  that  happened  with  me  wdien  I  was  on  every  side 
surrounded  by  what  is  considered  to  be  complete  happi- 
ness. I  had  a  good,  loving,  and  beloved  wife,  good  chil- 
dren, and  a  large  estate,  w^hich  grew  and  increased  without 
any  labour  on  my  part.  I  was  respected  by  my  neigh- 
bours and  friends,  more  than  ever  before,  was  praised  by 
strangers,  and,  without  any  self-deception,  could  consider 
my  name  famous.  With  all  that,  I  was  not  deranged  or 
mentally  unsound,  —  on  the  contrary,  I  was  in  full  com- 
mand of  my  mental  and  physical  powers,  such  as  I  had 
rarely  met  with  in  people  of  my  age :  physically  I  could 
work  in  a  field,  mowing,  without  falling  behind  a  peasant ; 
mentally  I  could  work  from  eight  to  ten  hours  in  succes- 
sion, without  experiencing  any  consequences  from  the 
strain.  And  while  in  such  condition  I  arrived  at  the  con- 
clusion that  I  could  not  hve,  and,  fearing  death,  I  had  to 
use  cunning  against  myself,  in  order  that  I  might  not  take 
my  life. 

This  mental  condition  expressed  itself  to  me  in  this 
form :  my  life  is  a  stupid,  mean  trick  played  on  me  by 
somebody.     Although   I  did  not  recognize   that  "  some- 


MY    CONFESSION  21 

body  "  as  having  created  me,  the  form  of  the  conception 
that  some  one  hatl  played  a  mean,  stupid  trick  on  me  by 
bringing  me  into  the  world  was  tlie  most  natural  one  that 
presented  itself  to  me. 

Involuntarily  I  imagined  that  there,  somewhere,  there 
was  somebody  wlio  was  now  having  fun  as  he  looked 
down  upon  me  and  saw  me,  who  had  lived  for  thirty  or 
forty  years,  learning,  developing,  growing  in  body  and 
mind,  now  that  I  had  become  strengthened  in  mind 
and  had  reached  that  summit  of  life  from  which  it  lay  all 
before  me,  standing  as  a  complete  fool  on  that  summit 
and  seeing  clearly  that  there  was  nothing  in  life  and 
never  would  be.     And  that  was  fun  to  him  — 

But  whether  there  was  or  was  not  that  somebody  who 
made  fun  of  me,  did  not  make  it  easier  for  me.  I  could 
not  ascribe  any  sensible  meaning  to  a  single  act,  or  to  my 
whole  life.  I  was  only  surprised  that  I  had  not  under- 
stood that  from  the  start.  All  that  had  long  ago  been 
known  to  everybody.  Sooner  or  later  there  would  come 
diseases  and  death  (they  had  come  already)  to  my  dear 
ones  and  to  me,  and  there  would  be  nothing  left  but 
stench  and  worms.  All  my  afi'airs,  no  matter  what  they 
might  be,  would  sooner  or  later  be  forgotten,  and  I  myself 
should  not  exist.  So  why  should  I  worry  about  all  these 
things  ?  How  could  a  man  fail  to  see  that  and  live,  — 
that  was  surprising !  A  person  could  live  only  so  long  as 
he  was  drunk ;  but  the  moment  he  sobered  up,  he  could 
not  help  seeing  that  all  that  was  only  a  deception,  and  a 
stupid  deception  at  that !  Really,  there  was  nothing 
funny  and  ingenious  about  it,  but  only  something  cruel 
and  stupid. 

Long  ago  has  been  told  the  Eastern  story  about  the 
traveller  who  in  the  steppe  is  overtaken  by  an  infuriated 
beast.  Trying  to  save  himself  from  the  animal,  the  trav- 
eller jumps  into  a  waterless  well,  but  at  its  bottom  he 
sees  a  dragon  who  opens  his  jaws  in  order  to  swallow 


22  MT    CONFESSION 

him.  And  the  unfortunate  man  does  not  dare  climb  out, 
lest  he  perish  from  the  infuriated  beast,  and  does  not  dare 
jump  down  to  the  bottom  of  the  well,  lest  he  be  devoured 
by  the  dragon,  and  so  clutches  the  twig  of  a  wild  bush 
growing  in  a  cleft  of  the  well  and  holds  on  to  it.  His 
hands  grow  weak  and  he  feels  that  soon  he  shall  have  to 
surrender  to  the  peril  which  awaits  him  at  either  side  ;  but 
he  still  holds  on  and  sees  two  mice,  one  white,  the  other 
black,  in  even  measure  making  a  cii'cle  around  the  main 
trunk  of  the  bush  to  which  he  is  clinging,  and  nibbling  at 
it  on  all  sides.  Now,  at  any  moment,  the  bush  will 
break  and  tear  off,  and  he  will  fall  into  the  dragon's  jaws. 
The  traveller  sees  that  and  knows  that  he  will  ine\'itably 
perish ;  but  while  he  is  still  clinging,  he  sees  some  drops 
of  honey  hanging  on  the  leaves  of  the  bush,  and  so 
reaches  out  for  them  w^ith  his  tongue  and  licks  the  leaves. 
Just  so  I  hold  on  to  the  branch  of  life,  knowing  that  the 
dragon  of  death  is  waiting  inevitably  for  me,  ready  to  tear 
me  to  pieces,  and  I  cannot  understand  why  I  have  fallen 
on  such  suffering.  And  I  try  to  lick  that  honey  which 
used  to  give  me  pleasure ;  but  now  it  no  longer  gives  me 
joy,  and  the  white  and  the  black  mouse  day  and  night 
nibble  at  the  branch  to  which  I  am  holding  on.  I  clearly 
see  the  dragon,  and  the  honey  is  no  longer  sweet  to  me. 
I  see  only  the  inevitable  dragon  and  the  mice,  and  am 
unable  to  turn  my  glance  away  from  them.  That  is  not 
a  fable,  but  a  veritable,  indisputable,  comprehensible  truth. 

The  former  deception  of  the  pleasures  of  Kfe,  which 
stifled  the  terror  of  the  dragon,  no  longer  deceives  me. 
No  matter  how  much  one  should  say  to  me,  "  You  cannot 
understand  the  meaning  of  life,  do  not  think,  live ! "  I  am 
unable  to  do  so,  because  I  have  been  doing  it  too  long 
before.  Now  I  cannot  help  seeing  day  and  night,  which 
run  and  lead  me  up  to  death.  I  see  that  alone,  because 
that  alone  is  the  truth.     Everything  else  is  a  He. 

The  two  drops  of  honey  that  have  longest  turned  my 


MY    CONFESSION  23 

eyes  away  from  the  cruel  truth,  the  love  of  family  and 
of  authorship,  which  I  have  called  an  art,  are  no  longer 
sweet  to  me. 

"  My  family  —  "I  said  to  myself,  "  but  my  family,  my 
wife  and  children,  they  are  also  human  beings.  They  are 
in  precisely  the  same  condition  that  I  am  in :  they  must 
either  live  in  the  lie  or  see  the  terrible  truth.  Why 
should  they  live  ?  Why  should  I  love  them,  why  guard, 
raise,  and  watch  them  ?  Is  it  for  the  same  despair  which 
is  in  me,  or  for  dulness  of  perception  ?  Since  I  love 
them,  I  cannot  conceal  the  truth  from  them,  —  every  step 
in  cognition  leads  them  up  to  this  truth.  And  the  truth 
is  death." 

"  Art,  poetry  ?  "  For  a  long  time,  under  the  influence 
of  the  success  of  human  praise,  I  tried  to  persuade  myself 
that  that  was  a  thing  which  could  be  done,  even  though 
death  should  come  and  destroy  everything,  my  deeds,  as 
well  as  my  memory  of  them ;  but  soon  I  came  to  see  that 
that,  too,  was  a  deception.  It  was  clear  to  me  that  art  was 
an  adornment  of  life,  a  decoy  of  life.  But  life  lost  all  its 
attractiveness  for  me.  How,  then,  could  I  entrap  others  ? 
So  long  as  I  did  not  live  my  own  life,  and  a  strange  life 
bore  me  on  its  waves ;  so  long  as  I  believed  that  life  had 
some  sense,  although  I  was  not  able  to  express  it,  —  the 
reflections  of  life  of  every  description  in  poetry  and  in  the 
arts  afforded  me  pleasure,  and  I  was  dehghted  to  look  at 
life  through  this  little  mirror  of  art ;  but  when  I  began  to 
look  for  the  meaning  of  life,  when  I  experienced  the  neces- 
sity of  living  myself,  that  little  mirror  became  either  use- 
less, superfluous,  and  ridiculous,  or  painful  to  me.  I  could 
no  longer  console  myself  "with  what  I  saw  in  the  mirror, 
namely,  that  my  situation  was  stupid  and  desperate.  It 
was  all  right  for  me  to  rejoice  so  long  as  I  believed  in  the 
depth  of  my  soul  that  life  had  some  sense.  At  that  time 
the  play  of  hghts  —  of  the  comical,  the  tragical,  the  touch- 
ing, the  beautiful,  the  terrible  in  life  —  afforded  me  amuse- 


24  MY    CONFESSION 

ment.  But  when  I  knew  that  hfe  was  meaningless  and 
terrible,  the  play  in  the  little  mirror  could  no  longer 
amuse  me.  No  sweetness  of  honey  could  be  sweet  to  me, 
when  I  saw  the  dragon  and  the  mice  that  were  nibbling 
down  my  support. 

That  was  not  all.  If  I  had  simply  comprehended  that 
life  had  no  meaning,  I  might  have  known  that  calmly,  — 
I  might  have  known  that  that  was  my  fate.  But  I  could 
not  be  soothed  by  that.  If  I  had  been  like  a  man  Hving 
in  a  forest  from  which  he  knew  there  was  no  way  out,  I 
might  have  lived ;  but  I  was  like  a  man  who  had  lost  his 
way  in  the  forest,  who  was  overcome  by  terror  because  he 
had  lost  his  way,  who  kept  tossing  about  in  his  desire  to 
come  out  on  the  road,  knowing  that  every  step  got  him 
only  more  entangled,  and  who  could  not  help  tossing. 

That  was  terrible.  And,  in  order  to  free  myself  from 
that  terror,  I  wanted  to  kill  myself.  I  experienced  terror 
before  what  was  awaiting  me,  —  I  knew  that  that  terror 
was  more  terrible  than  the  situation  itself,  but  I  could  not 
patiently  wait  for  the  end.  No  matter  how  convincing 
the  reflection  was  that  it  was  the  same  whether  a  vessel 
in  the  heart  should  break  or  something  should  burst,  and 
all  should  be  ended,  I  could  not  wait  patiently  for  the 
end.  The  terror  of  the  darkness  was  too  great,  and  I 
wanted  as  quickly  as  possible  to  free  myself  from  it  by 
means  of  a  noose  or  a  bullet.  It  was  this  feeling  that 
more  than  anything  else  drew  me  on  toward  suicide. 


V. 

"  But,  perhaps,  I  overlooked  something,  or  did  not  under- 
stand something  right  ? "  I  said  to  myself  several  times. 
"  It  is  impossible  that  this  condition  of  despair  should  be 
characteristic  of  men  ! "  And  I  tried  to  find  an  explana- 
tion for  these  questions  in  all  those  branches  of  knowl- 
edge which  men  had  acquired.  I  searched  painfully  and 
for  a  long  time,  and  I  searched  not  from  idle  curiosity,  not 
in  a  limp  manner,  but  painfully  and  stubbornly,  day  and 
night,  —  I  searched  as  a  perishing  man  searches  for  his 
salvation,  —  and  I  found  nothing. 

I  searched  in  all  the  branches  of  knowledge,  and  not 
only  failed  to  find  anything,  but  even  convinced  myself 
that  all  those  who,  like  myself,  had  been  searching  in  the 
sciences,  had  failed  just  as  much.  They  had  not  only  not 
found  anything,  but  had  also  clearly  recognized  the  fact 
that  that  which  had  brought  me  to  despair,  —  the  mean- 
inglessness  of  life,  —  was  the  only  incontestable  knowledge 
which  was  accessible  to  man. 

I  searched  everywhere,  and,  thanks  to  a  life  passed  in 
atudy,  and  also  because  through  my  connections  with  the 
learned  world  I  had  access  to  the  most  learned  of  men  in 
every  imaginable  branch  of  knowledge,  who  did  not  refuse 
to  disclose  to  me  their  knowledge,  not  only  in  books,  but 
also  in  conversations,  I  learned  everything  which  science 
replies  to  the  question  of  life. 

For  a  long  time  I  could  not  believe  that  science  had  no 
answer  to  give  to  the  questions  of  life,  except  what  it  gave. 
For  a  long  time  it  seemed  to  me,  as  I  looked  at  the  im- 

25 


26  MY    CONFESSION 

portance  and  seriousness  of  tone  which  science  assumed, 
when  it  enunciated  its  principles  which  had  nothing  in 
common  with  the  questions  of  human  hfe,  that  there  was 
something  in  it  which  I  did  not  understand.  For  a  long 
time  I  was  intimidated  by  science,  and  it  seemed  to  me 
that  the  inapplicability  of  the  answers  to  my  questions 
was  not  the  fault  of  science,  but  of  my  own  ignorance; 
but  the  matter  was  for  me  not  a  joke,  a  trifle,  but  an  affair 
of  my  whole  life,  and  I  was  against  my  will  led  to  the 
conviction  that  my  questions  were  the  only  legitimate 
cpiestious,  which  served  as  a  foundation  of  all  knowledge, 
and  that  not  I  with  my  questions  was  to  blame,  but  science, 
if  it  had  the  presumption  to  answer  these  questions. 

My  question,  the  one  which  led  me,  at  fifty  years,  up 
to  suicide,  was  the  simplest  kind  of  a  question,  and  one 
which  is  lying  in  the  soul  of  every  man,  from  the  silliest 
child  to  the  wisest  old  man,  —  that  question  without 
which  life  is  impossible,  as  I  have  experienced  it,  in  fact. 
The  question  is :  "  What  will  come  of  what  I  am  doing 
to-day  and  shall  do  to-morrow  ?  What  will  come  of  my 
whole  life  ? " 

Differently  expressed,  the  question  would  stand  like 
this  :  "  Why  live,  wish  for  anything,  why  do  anything  ?  " 
The  question  may  be  expressed  still  differently  :  "  Is  there 
in  my  life  a  meaning  wliich  would  not  be  destroyed  by 
my  inevitable,  imminent  death  ? " 

To  this  one,  differently  expressed,  question  I  searched 
for  an  answer  in  human  knowledge.  I  found  that  in 
relation  to  this  question  all  human  knowledge  seemed  to 
be  divided  into  two  opposite  hemispheres,  at  the  opposite 
ends  of  which  there  were  two  poles :  one,  a  negative,  the 
other,  a  positive  pole ;  but  that  at  neither  pole  was  there 
an  answer  to  the  questions  of  life. 

One  series  of  the  sciences  does  not  seem  to  recognize 
the  question,  but  clearly  and  definitely  answers  its  own, 
independently    put    questions :    that  is  the  series  of  the 


MY    CONFESSION  27 

experimental  sciences,  and  at  their  extreme  point  stands 
mathematics ;  the  other  series  of  knowledge  recognizes 
the  question,  but  gives  no  answer  to  it :  that  is  the  series 
of  the  speculative  sciences,  and  at  their  extreme  point 
stands  metaphysics. 

Ever  since  my  early  youth  I  had  been  interested  in  the 
speculative  sciences,  but  later  mathematics  and  the  natural 
sciences  attracted  me,  and  so  long  as  I  did  not  clearly  put 
my  question,  so  long  as  the  question  did  not  of  itself  rise 
in  me,  insisting  on  an  answer,  I  was  satisfied  with  those 
fictitious  answers  which  sciences  give  to  the  question. 

In  the  sphere  of  the  experimental  sciences,  I  said  to 
myself :  "  Everything  develops,  is  differentiated,  moves  in 
the  direction  of  complexity  and  perfection,  and  there  are 
laws  which  govern  this  progress.  You  are  a  part  of  the 
whole.  Having,  in  so  far  as  it  is  possible,  learned  the  whole, 
and  having  learned  the  law  of  evolution,  you  will  learn 
your  place  in  this  whole,  and  all  about  yourself."  I  am 
ashamed  to  confess  it,  there  was  a  time  when  I  seemed  to 
be  satisfied  with  that.  That  was  the  time  when  I  myself 
was  growing  more  complex  and  was  developing.  My 
muscles  grew  and  became  stronger,  my  memory  was  be- 
ing enriched,  my  ability  to  think  and  comprehend  was 
increasing,  I  grew  and  developed,  and,  feeling  within  me 
that  growth,  it  was  natural  for  me  to  think  that  that  was 
the  law  of  the  whole  world,  in  which  I  should  find  a  solu- 
tion also  to  the  questions  of  my  life.  But  the  time  came 
when  my  growth  stopped,  —  I  felt  that  I  was  not  develop- 
ing, but  drying  up,  that  my  muscles  were  growing  weaker 
and  my  teeth  falling  out,  —  and  I  saw  that  that  law  not 
only  explained  nothing  to  me,  but  that  there  never  was 
and  never  could  have  been  such  a  law,  and  that  I  took  for 
a  law  what  I  found  witliin  me  at  a  certain  period  of  hfe, 
I  was  more  severe  toward  the  definition  of  that  law ;  and 
it  became  clear  to  me  that  there  could  be  no  law  of  end- 
less development ;  it  Ijecame  clear  to  me  that  saying  that 


28  MY    CONFESSION 

in  endless  space  and  time  everything  was  developing,  per- 
fecting itself,  becoming  more  complex,  differentiating,  was 
tantamount  to  saying  nothing.  All  those  are  words  with- 
out any  meaning,  for  in  the  infinite  there  is  nothing  com- 
plex, nor  simple,  nor  in  front,  nor  behind,  nor  better,  nor 
worse. 

The  main  thing  was  that  my  personal  question,  "  What 
am  I  with  my  desires  ? "  remained  entirely  unanswered. 
And  I  understood  that  those  sciences  were  very  interest- 
ing, very  attractive,  but  that  the  dehuiteness  and  clearness 
of  those  sciences  were  in  inverse  proportion  to  their  appli- 
cability to  the  questions  of  life :  the  less  applicable  they 
are  to  the  questions  of  life,  the  more  definite  and  clear 
they  are ;  the  more  they  attempt  to  give  answers  to  the 
questions  of  life,  the  more  they  become  dim  and  unat- 
tractive. If  you  turn  to  that  branch  of  those  sciences 
which  attempts  to  give  answers  to  the  questions  of  life, 
—  to  physiology,  psychology,  biology,  sociology,  —  you 
come  across  an  appalling  scantiness  of  ideas,  -the  greatest 
obscurity,  an  unjustified  pretence  at  solving  irrelevant 
questions,  and  constant  contradictions  of  one  thinker 
with  others  and  even  with  himself.  If  you  turn  to  the 
branch  of  knowledge  which  does  not  busy  itself  with 
the  solution  of  the  problems  of  life,  but  answers  only  its 
special,  scientific  questions,  you  are  delighted  at  the 
power  of  the  human  mind,  but  know  in  advance  that 
there  will  be  no  answers  there  to  the  questions  of  life. 
These  sciences  directly  ignore  the  question  of  life.  They 
say  :  "  We  have  no  answers  to  what  you  are  and  why  you 
live,  and  we  do  not  busy  ourselves  with  that ;  but  if  you 
want  to  know  the  laws  of  light,  of  chemical  combinations, 
the  laws  of  the  development  of  organisms,  if  you  want  to 
know  the  laws  of  the  bodies,  their  forms,  and  the  relation 
of  numbers  and  quantities,  if  you  want  to  know  the  laws 
of  your  mind,  we  shall  give  you  clear,  definite,  incontro- 
vertible answers  to  all  that." 


MY    CONFESSION  29 

In  general  the  relation  of  the  experimental  sciences  to 
the  question  of  life  may  be  expressed  thus  :  Question, 
<'  Why  do  I  live  ? "  Answer,  "  In  the  endlessly  large 
space!!  in  an  endlessly  long  time,  intinitely  small  particles 
are  modified  in  infinite  complexity,  and  when  you  under- 
stand the  laws  of  these  modifications,  you  will  know  why 
you  live  upon  earth." 

In  the  sphere  of  the  speculative  sciences  I  said  to  my- 
self: "All  humanity  lives  and  develops  on  the  basis  of 
spiritual  principles,  ideals,  which  guide  it.  These  ideals 
are  expressed  in  the  rehgions,  in  the  sciences,  in  the  arts, 
in  the  forms  of  political  hfe.  These  ideals  are  all  the 
time  getting  higher  and  higher,  and  humanity  is  moving 
toward  a  higher  good.  I  am  a  part  of  humanity,  and  so 
my  calling  consists  in  cooperating  in  the  consciousness 
and  materialization  of  the  ideals  of  humanity."  During 
the  period  of  my  mental  insipidity  I  was  satisfied  with 
that ;  but  as  soon  as  the  question  of  life  arose  clearly 
within  me,  all  that  theory  immediately  went  to  pieces. 
Not  to  speak  of  that  unscrupulous  inexactness  with 
which  the  sciences  of  this  kind  give  out  the  deductions 
which  are  based  on  the  study  of  a  small  part  of  humanity 
as  general  deductions  ;  not  to  speak  of  the  mutual  con- 
tradictions of  the  different  partisans  of  this  conception  as 
to  what  constitutes  the  ideals  of  humanity,  —  the  strange- 
ness, not  to  say  stupidity,  of  tliis  conception  consists  in 
this,  that,  in  order  to  answer  the  question,  wliich  presents 
itself  to  every  man,  "  What  am  I  ? "  or,  "  Why  do  I 
live  ? "  or,  "  What  shall  I  do  ? "  a  man  must  first  solve 
the  problem,  "  What  is  the  life  of  all  humanity  ? "  which 
is  not  familiar  to  liim,  and  of  which  he  knows  only  one 
tiny  part  at  a  tiny  period  of  time.  In  order  to  under- 
stand what  he  is,  a  man  must  first  know  what  all  this 
mysterious  humanity  is,  which  consists  of  just  such  men 
as  he  himself  is,  who  do  not  understand  themselves. 

I  must  confess,  there  was  a  time  when  I  beheved  all 


30  MY    CONFESSION 

that.  That  was  the  time  when  I  had  my  favourite  ideals, 
which  justified  my  hists,  and  I  tried  to  discover  a  theory 
which  would  allow  me  to  look  upon  my  lusts  as  a  law  of 
humanity.  But  as  soon  as  the  question  of  Kfe  arose  in 
my  soul  in  all  its  clearness,  that  answer  at  once  was  scat- 
tered to  the  winds,  and  I  understood  that,  as  in  the 
experimental  sciences  there  were  real  sciences  and  half- 
sciences,  which  attempted  to  give  answers  to  questions 
which  are  not  in  their  domain,  so  also  in  this  sphere 
there  was  a  whole  series  of  wide-spread  sciences  which 
tried  to  answer  to  irrelevant  questions.  The  half-sciences 
of  this  sphere,  jurisprudence  and  the  social  sciences,  try  to 
solve  the  problems  of  man  by  apparently  solving,  each  in 
its  own  way,  the  question  of  the  life  of  all  humanity. 

But  just  as  in  the  sphere  of  the  experimental  sciences 
a  man  who  asks  in  all  sincerity  how  to  live  cannot  be 
satisfied  with  the  answer,  "  Study  in  infinite  space  the 
modifications,  infinite  in  time  and  complexity,  of  the 
infinite  particles,  and  then  you  will  understand  all  life," 
just  so  a  sincere  man  cannot  be  satisfied  with  the  answer, 
"  Study  the  Kfe  of  all  humanity,  whose  beginning  and  end 
we  cannot  know,  and  then  you  will  understand  your  own 
life."  Just  as  in  the  experimental  half-sciences,  these 
half-sciences  are  the  more  filled  with  inexactness,  obscuri- 
ties, silliness,  and  contradictions,  the  farther  they  depart 
from  the  problems  themselves.  The  problem  of  experi- 
mental science  is  a  causal  consecutiveness  of  material 
phenomena.  Experimental  science  need  only  introduce 
the  question  of  final  cause,  and  nonsense  is  the  result. 
The  problem  of  speculative  science  is  the  consciousness 
of  the  causeless  essence  of  life.  It  needs  only  introduce 
the  investigation  of  causal  phenomena,  such  as  the  social 
and  historical  phenomena,  and  the  result  is  nonsense. 

Experimental  science  gives  positive  knowledge  and 
manifests  the  greatness  of  the  human  mind  only  when  it 
does  not  introduce  the  final  cause  into  its  investigation. 


MY    CONFESSION  31 

And,  on  the  other  hand,  speculative  science  is  a  science 
and  manifests  the  greatness  of  the  human  mind  only 
when  it  entirely  sets  aside  the  questions  of  the  consecu- 
tiveness  of  causal  phenomena  and  considers  man  only  in 
relation  to  the  final  cause.  Such  in  this  sphere  is  the 
science  which  forms  the  pole  of  the  sphere,  metaphysics 
or  philosophy.  This  science  clearly  puts  the  question : 
"  What  am  I,  and  what  is  the  whole  world  ?  and  why  am 
I,  and  why  is  the  whole  world  ? "  And  ever  since  it  has 
been,  it  has  answered  in  the  same  way.  Whether  the 
philosopher  says  that  the  idea,  the  sultstance,  the  spirit, 
or  the  will  are  the  essence  of  life,  which  is  within  me 
and  in  everything  existing,  he  keeps  repeating  that  this 
essence  exists  and  that  I  am  that  essence ;  but  why  it  is, 
he  does  not  know  and  does  not  answer,  if  he  is  an  exact 
thinker.  I  ask,  why  should  this  essence  be  ?  What  will 
result  from  the  fact  that  it  is  and  that  it  will  be  ?  And 
philosophy  does  not  answer  that,  —  it  asks  itself  that 
(piestion  ;  and  if  it  is  a  sincere  philosophy,  its  whole 
labour  will  consist  merely  in  clearly  putting  that  ques- 
tion. And  if  it  sticks  firmly  to  its  problem,  it  cannot  do 
otherwise  than  answer  to  the  question,  "  What  am  I,  and 
what  is  the  wdiole  world  ?  "  by  saying,  "  Everything  and 
nothing  ; "  and  to  the  question,  "  Why  ? "  by  saying,  "  I 
do  not  know  why." 

Tvsrist  the  speculative  answers  of  philosophy  as  I  may, 
I  shall  never  get  anything  resembling  an  answer,  not  be- 
cause, as  in  the  clear,  experimental  sphere,  the  answer  does 
not  refer  to  my  question,  but  because,  though  the  whole 
mental  labour  is  directed  to  my  question,  there  is  no 
answer,  but  instead  of  the  answer  there  is  received  the 
same  question,  only  in  a  complicated  form. 


VI. 

In  my  search  after  the  question  of  life  I  experienced 
the  same  feehng  which  a  man  who  has  lost  his  way  in  the 
forest  may  experience. 

He  comes  to  a  clearing,  climbs  a  tree,  and  clearly  sees 
an  unlimited  space  before  him ;  at  the  same  time  he 
sees  that  there  are  no  houses  there,  and  that  there  can  be 
none ;  he  goes  back  to  the  forest,  into  the  darkness,  and 
he  sees  darkness,  and  again  there  are  no  houses. 

Thus  I  blundered  in  this  forest  of  human  knowledge, 
between  the  clearings  of  the  mathematical  and  experi- 
mental sciences,  which  disclosed  to  me  clear  horizons,  but 
such  in  the  direction  of  which  there  could  be  no  house, 
and  between  the  darkness  of  the  speculative  sciences, 
where  I  sunk  into  a  deeper  darkness,  the  farther  I  pro- 
ceeded, and  I  convinced  myself  at  last  that  there  was  no 
way  out  and  could  not  be. 

By  abandoning  myself  to  the  bright  side  of  knowledge 
I  saw  that  I  only  turned  my  eyes  away  from  the  question. 
No  matter  how  enticing  and  clear  the  horizons  were  that 
were  disclosed  to  me,  no  matter  how  enticing  it  was  to 
bury  myself  in  the  infinitude  of  this  knowledge,  I  com- 
prehended that  these  sciences  were  the  more  clear,  the  less 
I  needed  them,  the  less  they  answered  my  question. 

"  Well,  I  know,"  I  said  to  myself,  "  all  which  science 
wants  so  persistently  to  know,  but  there  is  no  answer  to 
the  question  about  the  meaning  of  my  life."  But  in  the 
speculative  sphere  I  saw  that,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 

32 


MY    CONFESSION  33 

the  aim  of  the  knowledge  was  directed  straight  to  the 
answer  of  my  question,  or  because  of  that  fact,  there  could 
be  no  other  answer  than  what  I  was  giving  to  myself : 
"  What  is  the  meaning  of  my  life  ?  "  —  "  None."  Or, 
"  What  will  come  of  my  life  ?  "  —  "  Nothing."  Or,  "  Why 
does  everything  which  exists  exist,  and  why  do  I  exist  ?  " 
—  "  Because  it  exists." 

Putting  the  question  to  the  one  side  of  human  knowl- 
edge, I  received  an  endless  quantity  of  exact  answers  about 
what  I  did  not  ask  :  about  the  chemical  composition  of 
the  stars,  about  the  movement  of  the  sun  toward  the  con- 
stellation of  Hercules,  about  the  origin  of  species  and  of 
man,  about  the  forms  of  infinitely  small,  imponderable  parti- 
cles of  ether  ;  but  the  answer  in  this  sphere  of  knowledge 
to  my  question  what  the  meaning  of  my  life  was,  was 
always  :  "  You  are  what  you  call  your  life  ;  you  are  a  tem- 
poral, accidental  conglomeration  of  particles.  The  inter- 
relation, the  change  of  these  particles,  produces  in  you  that 
which  you  call  life.  This  congeries  will  last  for  some 
time  ;  then  the  interaction  of  these  particles  will  cease,  and 
that  which  you  call  hfe  and  all  your  questions  will  come 
to  an  end.  You  are  an  accidentally  cohering  globule  of 
something.  The  globule  is  fermenting.  This  fermenta- 
tion the  globule  calls  its  life.  The  globule  falls  to  pieces, 
and  all  fermentation  and  all  questions  will  come  to  an 
end."  Thus  the  clear  side  of  knowledge  answers,  and  it 
cannot  say  anything  else,  if  only  it  strictly  follows  its 
principles. 

With  such  an  answer  it  appears  that  the  answer  is  not 
a  reply  to  the  question.  I  want  to  know  the  meaning  of 
my  life,  but  the  fact  that  it  is  a  particle  of  the  infinite  not 
only  gives  it  no  meaning,  but  even  destroys  every  possible 
meaning. 

Those  obscure  transactions,  which  this  side  of  the  ex- 
perimental, exact  science  has  with  speculation,  when  it 
says  that  the  meaning  of  life  consists  in  evolution  and  the 


34  MY    CONFESSION 

cooperation  with  this  evohition,  because  of  their  obscurity 
and  inexactness  cannot  be  regarded  as  answers. 

The  other  side  of  knowledge,  the  speculative,  so  long  as 
it  sticks  strictly  to  its  fundamental  principles  in  giving  a 
direct  answer  to  the  question,  everywhere  and  at  all  times 
has  answered  one  and  the  same  :  "  The  world  is  something 
infinite  and  incomprehensible.  Human  life  is  an  incom- 
prehensible part  of  this  incomprehensible  all."  Again  I 
exclude  all  those  transactions  between  the  speculative  and 
the  experimental  sciences,  which  form  the  whole  ballast 
of  the  half-sciences,  the  so-called  science  of  jurisprudence 
and  the  political  and  historical  sciences.  Into  these  sciences 
are  just  as  irregularly  introduced  the  concepts  of  evolution 
and  perfection,  but  with  this  difference,  that  there  it  is 
the  evolution  of  everything,  while  here  it  is  the  evolution 
of  the  life  of  man.  The  irregularity  is  one  and  the  same  : 
evolution,  perfection  in  the  infinite,  can  have  neither  aim 
nor  direction,  and  answers  nothing  in  respect  to  my 
question. 

Where  speculative  science  is  exact,  namely,  in  real  phi- 
losophy, —  not  in  the  one  which  Schopenhauer  calls  the 
professorial  philosophy,  which  serves  only  for  distributing 
all  existing  phenomena  according  to  new  philosophical 
rubrics  and  calling  them  by  new  names,  —  where  the 
philosopher  does  not  let  out  of  sight  the  essential  question, 
the  answer  is  always  one  and  the  same,  —  the  answer 
given  by  Socrates,  Schopenhauer,  Solomon,  Buddha. 

"  We  shall  approach  truth  in  proportion  as  we  remove 
ourselves  from  life,"  says  Socrates,  preparing  himself  for 
death.  "  What  are  we,  who  love  truth,  striving  after  in 
life  ?  To  free  ourselves  from  the  body  and  from  all  evil 
which  results  from  the  life  of  the  body.  If  that  is  so, 
why  should  we  not  rejoice  when  death  comes  to  us  ? 
The  wise  man  is  seeking  his  death  all  the  time,  and  there- 
fore death  is  not  terrible  to  him." 

And  this  is  what  Schopenhauer  says : 


MY   CONFESSION  35 

"  Having  learned  tlie  internal  essence  of  the  world  as 
will,  and  in  all  the  phenomena,  from  the  unconscious 
striving  of  the  dark  forces  of  Nature  to  the  full  con- 
sciousness of  the  activity  of  man,  having  learned  only  the 
objectivity  of  this  will,  we  shall  by  no  means  escape  the 
consequence  that  with  the  free  negation,  the  self-destruc- 
tion of  the  will,  there  will  disappear  all  those  phenomena, 
that  constant  striving  and  tendency  without  aim  or  rest 
on  all  the  stages  of  objectivity,  in  which  and  through 
which  the  world  exists  ;  there  will  disappear  the  diversity 
of  consecutive  forms,  and  with  the  form  will  disappear  all 
its  phenomena  with  their  general  forms,  space  and  time, 
and,  finally,  its  last  fundamental  form,  subject  and  object. 
When  there  is  no  will,  there  is  no  concept,  no  world. 
Before  us  nothing  only  is  left.  But  what  opposes  this 
transition  to  nothingness,  our  nature,  is  that  very  will  to 
exist  [Wille  zum  Lcbeii),  which  forms  ourselves  as  well  as 
the  world.  That  we  are  so  afraid  of  nothincfness,  or,  what 
is  the  same,  that  we  desire  to  live,  signifies  that  we  our- 
selves are  nothing  but  that  desire  to  live  and  that  we 
know  nothing  else.  Therefore,  what  will  be  left  after  the 
complete  annihilation  of  the  will  for  us  who  are  still  full 
of  that  will  is  naturally  nothing  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
for  those  in  whom  the  will  has  turned  away  and  re- 
nounced itself,  this  our  so  real  world,  with  all  its  suns 
and  milky  ways,  is  nothing." 

"  Vanity  of  vanities,"  says  Solomon,  "  vanity  of  vani- 
ties ;  all  is  vanity.  What  profit  hath  a  man  of  all  his 
labour  which  he  taketh  under  the  sun  ?  One  generation 
passeth  away,  and  another  generation  cometh :  but  the 
earth  abideth  for  ever.  The  thing  that  hath  been,  it  is 
that  which  shall  be  ;  and  that  which  is  done  is  that  which 
shall  be  done :  and  there  is  no  new  thing  under  the  sun. 
Is  there  any  thing  whereof  it  may  be  said.  See,  this  is 
new  ?  it  hath  been  already  of  old  time,  which  was  before 
us.     There  is  no  remembrance  of  former  things ;  neither 


36  MY    CONFESSION 

shall  there  be  any  remembrance  of  things  that  are  to 
come  with  those  tliat  shall  come  after.  I  the  Preacher 
was  king  over  Israel  iu  Jerusalem.  And  I  gave  my 
heart  to  seek  and  search  out  by  wisdom  concerning  all 
things  that  are  done  under  heaven  :  this  sore  travail  hath 
God  given  to  the  sons  of  man  to  be  exercised  therewith. 
I  have  seen  all  the  works  that  are  done  under  the  sun ; 
and  behold,  all  is  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit.  I  com- 
muned with  mine  own  heart,  saying,  Lo,  I  am  come  to 
great  estate,  and  have  gotten  more  wisdom  than  all  they 
that  have  been  before  me  in  Jerusalem  :  yea,  my  heart 
had  great  experience  of  wisdom  and  knowledge.  And 
I  gave  my  heart  to  know  wisdom,  and  to  know  madness 
and  folly :  I  perceived  that  this  also  is  vexation  of  spirit. 
For  in  much  wisdom  is  much  grief :  and  he  that  increaseth 
knowledge  increaseth  sorrow. 

"  I  said  in  mine  heart,  Go  to  now,  I  will  prove  thee 
with  mirth ;  therefore  enjoy  pleasure :  and  behold,  this 
also  is  vanity.  I  said  of  laughter.  It  is  mad  :  and  of 
mirth,  What  doeth  it  ?  I  sought  iu  mine  heart  to  give 
myself  unto  wine,  yet  acquainting  mine  heart  with  wis- 
dom ;  and  to  lay  hold  on  folly,  till  I  might  see  what  was 
that  good  for  the  sons  of  men,  which  they  should  do 
under  the  heaven  all  the  days  of  their  life.  I  made  me 
great  works ;  I  builded  me  houses ;  I  planted  me  vine- 
yards :  I  made  me  gardens  and  orchards,  and  I  planted 
trees  in  them  of  all  kind  of  fruits :  I  made  me  pools  of 
water,  to  water  therewith  the  wood  that  bringeth  forth 
trees :  I  got  me  servants  and  maidens,  and  had  servants 
born  in  my  house ;  also  I  had  great  possessions  of  great 
and  small  cattle  above  all  that  were  in  Jerusalem  before 
me  ;  I  gathered  me  also  silver  and  gold,  and  the  peculiar 
treasure  of  kings,  and  of  the  provinces :  I  gat  me  men- 
singers  and  women-singers,  and  the  delights  of  the  sons 
of  men,  as  musical  instruments,  and  that  of  all  sorts.  So 
I  was  great,  and  increased  more  than  all  that  were  before 


MY    CONFESSION  37 

me  in  Jerusalem :  also  my  wisdom  remained  with  me. 
And  whatsoever  mine  eyes  desired  I  kept  not  from  them, 
I  withheld  not  my  lieart  from  any  joy.  Then  I  looked 
on  all  the  works  that  my  hands  had  wrought,  and  on  the 
labour  that  I  had  laboured  to  do :  and  behold,  all  was 
vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit,  and  there  was  no  profit 
under  the  sun.  And  I  turned  myself  to  behold  wisdom, 
and  madness,  and  folly.  And  I  myself  perceived  also 
that  one  event  happeneth  to  them  all.  Then  said  I  in 
my  heart,  As  it  happeneth  to  the  fool,  so  it  happeneth 
even  to  me ;  and  why  was  I  then  more  wise  ?  Then 
I  said  in  my  heart,  that  this  also  is  vanity.  Por  there  is 
no  remembrance  of  the  wise  more  than  of  the  fool  for 
ever ;  seeing  that  which  now  is  in  the  days  to  come  shall 
all  be  forgotten.  And  how  dieth  the  wise  man  ?  as  the 
fool.  Therefore  I  hated  life ;  because?  the  work  that  is 
wrought  under  the  sun  is  grievous  unto  me :  for  all  is 
vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit.  Yea,  1  hated  all  my  labour 
which  I  had  taken  under  the  sun  :  because  I  should  leave 
it  unto  the  man  that  shall  be  after  me. 

"  For  what  hath  man  of  all  his  labour,  and  of  the  vexa- 
tion of  his  heart,  wherein  he  hath  laboured  under  the 
sun  ?  For  all  his  days  are  sorrows,  and  his  travail  grief  ; 
yea,  his  heart  taketh  not  rest  in  the  night.  This  is  also 
vanity.  There  is  nothing  better  for  a  man,  than  that  he 
should  eat  and  drink,  and  that  he  should  make  his  soul 
enjoy  good  in  his  labour. 

"  All  things  come  alike  to  all :  there  is  one  event  to 
the  righteous  and  to  the  wicked  ;  to  the  good,  and  to  the 
clean,  and  to  the  unclean  ;  to  him  that  sacrificeth,  and  to 
him  that  sacrificeth  not :  as  is  the  good,  so  is  the  sinner ; 
and  he  that  sweareth,  as  he  that  feareth  an  oath.  This  is 
an  evil  among  all  things  that  are  done  under  the  sun, 
that  there  is  one  event  unto  all :  yea,  also  the  heart  of 
the  sons  of  men  is  full  of  evil,  and  madness  is  in  their 
heart  while  they  live,  and  after  that  they  go  to  the  dead. 


38  MY    CONFESSION 

For  to  him  that  is  joined  to  all  the  living  there  is  hope : 
for  a  hving  dog  is  better  than  a  dead  lion.  For  the  hving 
know  that  they  shall  die :  but  the  dead  know  not  any 
thing,  neither  have  they  any  more  a  reward ;  for  the 
memory  of  them  is  forgotten.  Also  their  love,  and  their 
hatred,  and  their  envy,  is  now  perished,  neither  have 
they  any  more  a  portion  for  ever  in  any  thing  that  is 
done  under  the  sun." 

And  this  is  what  the  Indian  wisdom  says  : 
Sakya-Muni,  a  young,  happy  prince,  from  whom  have 
been  concealed  diseases,  old  age,  and  death,  drives  out  for 
pleasure,  when  he  sees  a  terrible,  toothless,  slavering  old 
man.  The  prince,  from  whom  old  age  has  heretofore 
been  concealed,  is  surprised,  and  he  asks  the  charioteer 
what  that  is,  and  why  that  man  has  come  to  such  a 
wretched,  loath?o'Ti.e  state  ?  And  when  he  learns  that 
that  is  the  comm:n  fate  of  all  men,  that  he,  the  youthful 
prince,  has  inevitably  the  same  in  store,  he  cannot  pro- 
ceed in  his  pleasure  drive,  but  gives  order  to  be  driven 
home,  in  order  to  consider  that.  Evidently  he  finds  some 
consolation,  for  he  again  drives  out  cheerful  and  happy. 
But  this  time  he  meets  a  sick  man.  He  sees  an  ema- 
ciated, livid,  sliivering  man,  with  blurred  eyes.  The 
prince,  from  whom  diseases  have  been  concealed,  stops 
and  asks  what  that  is.  And  when  he  learns  that  that  is 
sickness,  to  which  all  men  are  subject,  and  that  he  him- 
self, a  healthy  and  happy  prince,  may  be  as  sick  as  that 
on  the  morrow,  he  again  has  no  courage  to  amuse  himself, 
orders  himself  driven  home,  and  again  looks  for  consola- 
tion, which  he  evidently  finds,  for  he  has  himself  driven 
out  a  third  time ;  but  this  third  time  he  sees  again  a  new 
spectacle,  —  he  sees  that  something  is  carried  by.  "  What 
is  that  ?  "  —  A  dead  man.  "  Wbat  does  a  dead  man  mean  ?  " 
asks  the  prince.  He  is  told  that  to  become  dead  means 
to  become  what  that  man  is.  The  prince  goes  up  to  the 
corpse,    and    takes    off   the    shroud    and    looks    at   him. 


MY    CONFESSION  39 

•'  What  will  be  done  with  him  ?  "  asks  the  prince.  He  is 
told  that  he  will  be  buried  in  the  ground.  "  Why  ? "  — 
Because  he  will  certainly  never  be  alive  again,  and  there 
will  be  only  stench  and  worms.  "And  is  this  the  fate 
of  all  men  ?  And  will  the  same  happen  to  me  ?  Shall 
I  be  buried,  and  will  a  stench  rise  from  me,  and  will 
worms  eat  me  ? "  —  Yes.  "  Back  !  I  do  not  wish  to  go 
out  for  pleasure,  and  will  never  be  driven  out  again." 

And  Sakya-Muni  could  not  find  any  consolation  in  life, 
and  he  decided  that  hfe  was  the  greatest  evil,  and  used  all 
the  forces  of  his  soul  to  free  himself  from  it  and  to  free 
others,  and  to  do  this  in  such  a  way  that  even  after  death 
it  might  not  return  in  some  manner,  —  to  annihilate  life 
with  its  root.     Thus  speaks  the  whole  Indian  wisdom. 

So  these  are  the  direct  answers  wliich  human  wisdom 
gives  when  it  answers  the  question  of  life. 

"  The  life  of  the  body  is  an  evil  and  a  lie,  and  so  the 
destruction  of  this  life  of  the  body  is  a  good,  and  we  must 
wish  it,"  says  Socrates. 

"  Life  is  that  which  ought  not  to  be,  —  an  evil,  —  and 
the  transition  into  nothingness  is  the  only  good  of  life," 
says  Schopenhauer. 

"  Everything  in  the  world,  foolishness,  and  wisdom,  and 
riches,  and  poverty,  and  merriment,  and  grief,  everything 
is  vanity  and  nonsense.  Man  will  die,  and  nothing  will 
be  left.     And  that  is  foolish,"  says  Solomon. 

"  It  is  impossible  to  live  with  the  consciousness  of 
inevitable  suffering,  debility,  old  age,  and  death,  —  it  is 
necessary  to  free  oneself  from  life,  from  every  possibility 
of  life,"  says  Buddha. 

And  what  these  powerful  minds  have  said,  millions  of 
millions  of  people  have  said,  thought,  and  felt  like  them, 
and  so  think  and  feel  I. 

Thus,  my  wandering  among  the  sciences  not  only  did 
not  take  me  out  of  my  despair,  but  even  increased  it. 
One  science  gave  no  reply  to  the  question  of  life,  another 


40  MY    CONFESSION 

gave  me  a  direct  answer  and  only  confirmed  my  despair 
and  showed  me  that  what  I  had  arrived  at  was  not  the 
fruit  of  my  aberration,  of  a  morbid  condition  of  my  mind ; 
on  the  contrary,  it  only  confirmed  me  in  my  belief  that 
my  thoughts  were  correct  and  that  I  agreed  with  the 
deductions  of  the  most  powerful  minds  of  humanity. 

There  is  no  cause  for  self-deception.  Everything  is 
vanity.  Happy  is  he  who  is  not  born,  —  death  is  better 
than  life :  it  is  necessary  to  free  oneself  from  it. 


Vlt 

Having  found  no  elucidation  in  science,  I  began  to 
look  for  it  in  life,  hoping  to  find  it  in  the  men  who  sur- 
rounded me.  I  began  to  observe  the  people  such  as  I,  to 
see  how  they  lived  about  me  and  what  attitude  they 
assumed  to  the  question  that  had  brought  me  to  the 
point  of  despair. 

This  is  what  I  found  in  people  who  were  in  the  same 
position  as  myself  through  their  education  and  manner  of 
life. 

I  found  that  for  people  of  my  circle  there  were  four 
ways  out  from  the  terrible  condition  in  which  we  all 
are. 

The  first  way  out  is  through  ignorance.  It  consists  in 
not  knowing,  not  understanding  that  life  is  evil  and 
meaningless.  People  of  this  category  —  mostly  women 
or  very  young  or  very  dull  persons  —  have  not  yet  come 
to  understand  that  question  of  life  which  presented  itself 
to  Schopenhauer,  Solomon,  and  Buddlia.  They  see  neither 
the  dragon  that  awaits  them,  nor  the  mice  that  are  nib- 
bling at  the  roots  of  the  bushes  to  which  they  are  holding 
on,  and  continue  to  lick  the  honey.  But  they  lick  the 
honey  only  till  a  certain  time :  something  will  direct 
their  attention  to  the  dragon  and  the  mice,  and  there  will 
be  an  end  to  their  licking.  From  them  I  can  learn 
nothing,  —  it  is  impossible  to  stop  knowing  what  you 
know. 

The  second  way  out  is  through  Epicureanism.  It  con- 
sists in  this,  that,  knowing  the  hopelessness  of  Ufe,  one 

41 


42  MY    CONFESSION 

should  in  the  meantime  enjoy  such  good  as  there  is,  with- 
out looking  either  at  the  dragon  or  the  mice,  but  licking 
the  honey  in  the  best  manner  possible,  especially  if  there 
is  a  lot  of  it  in  one  spot.  Solomon  expresses  this  way  out 
like  this : 

"  Go  thy  way,  eat  thy  bread  with  joy,  and  drink  thy 
wine.  Live  joyfully  with  the  wife  whom  thou  lovest 
all  the  days  of  the  life  of  thy  vanity,  which  he  hath  given 
thee  under  the  sun,  all  the  days  of  thy  vanity :  for  that 
is  thy  portion  in  this  life,  and  in  thy  labour  which  thou 
takest  under  the  sun.  Whatsoever  thy  hand  findeth  to  do, 
do  it  with  thy  might ;  for  there  is  no  work,  nor  device, 
nor  knowledge,  nor  wisdom,  in  the  grave,  whither  thou 
goest." 

Thus  the  majority  of  the  people  of  our  circle  support 
the  possibihty  of  life  in  themselves.  The  conditions  in 
which  they  are  give  them  more  good  than  evil,  and  their 
moral  dulness  makes  it  possible  for  them  to  forget  that 
the  advantage  of  their  situation  is  a  casual  one  ;  that  not 
everybody  can  have  a  thousand  wives  and  palaces,  like 
Solomon;  that  to  every  man  with  a  thousand  wives  there 
are  a  thousand  men  without  wives,  and  for  every  palace 
there  are  a  thousand  people  who  built  it  in  the  sweat  of 
their  brows ;  and  that  the  accident  which  has  made  me  a 
Solomon  to-day,  will  to-morrow  make  me  a  slave  of  Solo- 
mon. The  dulness  of  the  imagination  of  these  people 
makes  it  possil)le  for  them  to  forget  that  which  gave 
no  rest  to  Buddha,  —  the  inevitableness  of  sickness,  old 
age,  and  death,  which  sooner  or  later  will  destroy  all  those 
pleasures. 

Thus  think  and  feel  the  majority  of  men  of  our  time 
and  our  manner  of  life.  The  fact  that  some  of  these  peo- 
ple assert  that  the  dulness  of  their  comprehension  and 
imagination  is  philosopliy,  which  they  call  positive,  in  my 
opinion  does  not  take  them  out  of  the  category  of  those 
who,  in   order  not  to  see  the  question,  lick  the  honey. 


MY    CONFESSION  43 

Such  people  I  could  not  imitate:  as  I  did  not  possess 
their  duluess  of  compreheusion,  I  could  not  artificially 
reproduce  it  in  myself.  Just  like  any  live  man,  I  could 
not  tear  my  eyes  away  from  the  mice  and  the  dragon, 
having  once  seen  them. 

The  third  way  out  is  through  force  and  energy.  It 
consists  in  this,  that,  having  comprehended  that  life  is 
evil  and  meaningless,  one  should  set  out  to  destroy  it. 
Thus  now  and  then  act  strong,  consistent  people.  Having 
comprehended  all  the  stupidity  of  the  joke  which  has  been 
played  upon  them,  and  seeing  that  the  good  of  the  dead  is 
better  than  that  of  the  hving,  and  that  it  is  better  not  to 
be  at  all,  they  go  and  carry  tliis  out  and  at  once  put  an  end 
to  that  stupid  joke,  so  long  as  there  are  means  for  it :  a 
noose  about  the  neck,  the  water,  a  knife  to  pierce  the 
heart  with,  railway  trains.  The  number  of  people  of  our 
circle  who  do  so  is  growing  larger  and  larger.  These  peo- 
ple commit  the  act  generally  at  the  best  period  of  life, 
when  the  mental  powers  are  in  full  bloom  and  few  habits 
have  been  acquired  that  lower  human  reason. 

I  saw  that  that  was  the  worthiest  way  out,  and  I 
wanted  to  act  in  that  way. 

The  fourth  way  out  is  through  weakness.  It  consists 
in  this,  that,  comprehending  the  evil  and  the  meaningless- 
ness  of  life,  one  continues  to  drag  it  out,  knowing  in 
advance  that  nothing  can  come  of  it.  People  of  this 
calibre  know  that  death  is  better  than  life,  but,  not  hav- 
ing the  strength  to  act  reasonably,  to  make  an  end  to  the 
deception,  and  to  kill  themselves,  they  seem  to  be  waiting 
for  something.  This  is  the  way  of  weakness,  for  if  I 
know  that  which  is  better,  which  is  in  my  power,  why 
not  abandon  myself  to  that  which  is  better  ?  I  belonged 
to  that  category. 

Thus  people  of  my  calibre  have  four  ways  of  saving 
themselves  from  the  terrible  contradiction.  No  matter 
how  much  I  strained  my  mental  attention,  I  saw  no  other 


44  MY    CONFESSION 

way  out  but  those  four.  The  one  way  out  was  not  to 
understand  that  hfe  was  meaningless,  vanity,  and  an  evil, 
and  that  it  was  better  not  to  live.  I  could  not  help 
knowing  it  and,  having  once  learned  it,  I  could  not  shut 
my  eyes  to  it.  The  second  way  out  was  to  make  use  of 
life  such  as  it  is,  without  thinking  of  the  future.  I  could 
not  do  that  either.  Like  Sakya-AIuni,  I  could  not  go 
out  hunting,  when  I  knew  that  there  was  old  age,  suffer- 
ing, death.  My  imagination  was  too  vivid.  Besides,  I 
could  not  enjoy  the  accident  of  the  moment,  which  for  a 
twinkling  threw  enjoyment  in  my  path.  The  third  way 
out  was,  having  come  to  see  that  life  was  an  evil  and  a 
foolishness,  to  make  an  end  of  it  and  kill  myself.  I  com- 
prehended that,  but  for  some  reason  did  not  kill  myself. 
The  fourth  way  out  was  to  live  in  the  condition  of  Solo- 
mon, of  Schopenhauer,  —  to  know  that  life  was  a  stupid 
joke  played  on  me,  and  yet  to  live,  wash  and  dress  myself, 
dine,  speak,  and  even  write  books.  That  was  repulsive 
and  painful  for  me,  but  still  I  persisted  in  that  situation. 

Now  I  see  that  if  I  did  not  kill  myself,  the  cause  of  it 
was  a  dim  consciousness  of  the  incorrectness  of  my  ideas. 
No  matter  how  convincing  and  incontestable  seemed  to 
me  the  train  of  my  thoughts  and  of  the  thoughts  of  the 
wise  men  who  had  brought  us  to  recognize  the  meaning- 
lessness  of  life,  there  was  left  in  me  an  obscure  doubt  of 
the  correctness  of  my  judgment. 

It  was  like  this:  I,  my  reason,  have  discovered  that 
life  is  unreasonable.  If  there  is  no  higher  reason  (there 
is  none,  and  nothing  can  prove  it),  reason  is  the  creator 
of  life  for  me.  If  there  were  no  reason,  there  would  be  no 
life  for  me.  How  then  does  this  reason  negate  life,  since 
it  is  itself  the  creator  of  life  ?  Life  is  everything.  Eea- 
son  is  the  fruit  of  life,  and  this  reason  denies  life  itself. 
I  felt  that  something  was  wrong  there. 

Life  is  a  meaningless  evil,  —  that  was  incontestable,  I 
said  to  myself.     But  I  have  lived,  still  live,  and  all  hu- 


MY    CONFESSION  45 

manity  has  lived.  How  is  that  ?  Why  does  it  live, 
since  it  can  refuse  to  live  ?  Is  it  possible  Schopenhauer 
and  I  alone  are  so  wise  as  to  have  comprehended  the 
meaninglessness  and  evil  of  life  ? 

The  discussion  of  the  vanity  of  life  is  not  so  cunning, 
and  it  has  been  brought  forward  long  ago.  even  by  the 
simplest  kind  of  men,  and  yet  they  have  lived  and  still 
live.  Why  do  they  continue  living  and  never  think  of 
doubting  the  reasonableness  of  life  ? 

My  knowledge,  confirmed  by  the  wisdom  of  the  sages, 
has  disclosed  to  me  that  everything  in  the  world,  — 
everything  organic  and  inorganic,  —  everytliing  is  con- 
structed with  surprising  cleverness,  only  my  own  condi- 
tion is  stupid.  And  those  fools,  the  enormous  masses  of 
people,  know  nothing  about  how  everything  organic  and 
inorganic  is  constructed  in  the  world,  and  yet  live,  and 
they  think  that  their  life  is  sensibly  arranged ! 

And  it  occurred  to  me  that  there  might  be  something  I 
did  not  know,  for  ignorance  acts  in  precisely  that  manner. 
Ignorance  always  says  the  same.  When  it  does  not  know 
a  thing,  it  says  that  what  it  does  not  know  is  stupid.  In 
reality  it  turns  out  that  there  is  a  human  entity  which 
has  lived  as  though  understanding  the  meaning  of  its  life, 
for,  if  it  did  not  understand  it,  it  could  not  live,  and  I 
say  that  the  whole  life  is  meaningless,  and  that  I  cannot 
Hve. 

Nobody  prevents  our  denying  hfe  by  committing  sui- 
cide. If  so,  kill  yourself  and  stop  discussing !  You  do 
not  like  life,  very  well,  then  kill  yourself !  If  you  live 
and  cannot  understand  the  meaning  of  life,  make  an  end 
to  it,  and  do  not  whirl  about  in  this  life,  going  into  dis- 
cussions about  not  understanding  life.  If  you  have  come 
to  a  gay  company,  where  all  are  very  happy  and  know 
what  they  are  doing,  while  you  feel  lonesome  and 
disgusted,  go  away ! 

Indeed,  what  are  we,  who  are  convinced  of  the  neces- 


46  MY    CONFESSION 

sity  of  suicide  and  who  do  not  have  the  courage  to  commit 
it,  if  not  the  weakest,  most  inconsistent,  and,  to  speak 
simply,  the  most  foolish  kind  of  men  who  carry  about 
their  foolishness  as  a  fool  carries  around  his  painted 
wallet  ? 

Our  wisdom,  however  incontestable  it  may  be,  has  not 
given  us  the  knowledge  of  the  meaning  of  our  life;  but 
all  humanity  which  is  carrying  on  Ufe  —  the  millions  — 
does  not  doubt  the  meaning  of  hfe. 

Indeed,  ever  since  those  most  ancient,  ancient  times 
since  when  life  has  existed,  of  which  I  know  anything, 
there  have  lived  men  who  knew  the  reflection  on  the 
vanity  of  life,  which  has  shown  me  the  meaninglessness 
of  life,  and  yet  they  lived,  ascribing  some  kind  of  a 
meaniug  to  it. 

Ever  since  any  life  began  with  men,  they  had  that 
meaning  of  life,  and  they  have  carried  on  the  life  that 
has  reached  me.  Everything  which  is  in  me  and  about 
me, —  everything  carnal  and  non-carnal, —  all  that  is  the 
fruit  of  their  knowledge  of  life.  All  the  tools  of  thought, 
with  which  I  judge  this  life  and  condemn  it,  —  all  that 
was  done  by  them,  and  not  by  me.  I  was  born,  educated, 
and  grew  up,  thanks  to  them.  They  mined  the  iron, 
taught  how  to  cut  down  the  forest,  domesticated  cows 
and  horses,  taught  how  to  sow,  how  to  Hve  together,  and 
arranged  our  hfe  ;  they  taught  me  to  think  and  to  speak. 
And  I,  their  product,  nurtured  and  fed  by  them,  taught 
by  them,  thinking  their  thoughts,  and  speaking  their 
words,  —  I  have  proved  to  them  that  they  are  meaning- 
less !  "  There  is  something  wrong  there,"  I  said  to  my- 
self. "  I  must  have  made  a  mistake  somewhere."  But 
where  the  mistake  was,  I  was  unable  to  discover. 


VIII. 

All  these  doubts,  which  now  I  am  able  to  express 
more  or  less  co^^erently,  T  could  not  express  then.  Then 
I  only  felt  thaJ,  no  matter  how  logically  inevitable  and 
how  confirmed  by  the  greatest  thinkers  were  my  deduc- 
tions about  the  vanity  of  life,  there  was  something  wrong 
in  them.  Whether  it  was  in  the  reflection  itself,  in  the 
way  the  question  was  put,  I  did  not  know,  —  I  felt  that 
the  mental  proof  was  complete,  but  that  that  was  not 
enough.  All  ^ese  deductions  did  not  convince  me  suffi- 
ciently to  make  me  do  that  which  resulted  from  my 
reflections,  which  was,  that  I  should  commit  suicide.  I 
should  be  telling  an  untruth  if  I  said  that  I  arrived 
through  reason  at  what  I  did  arrive  at,  and  did  not  kill 
myself.  Eeason  was  at  work,  but  there  was  also  some- 
thing else  at  work,  which  I  cannot  call  otherwise  than  the 
consciousness  of  life.  There  was  also  at  work  that  force 
which  compelled  me  to  direct  my  attention  to  this  rather 
than  to  that,  and  this  force  brought  me  out  of  my  desper- 
ate situation  and  directed  my  reason  to  something  entirely 
different.  This  force  made  me  observe  that  I,  with  a 
hundred  people  like  me,  did  not  constitute  all  humanity 
and  that  I  did  not  yet  know  the  life  of  humanity. 

Surveying  the  narrow  circle  of  my  equals,  I  saw  only 
people  who  did  not  understand  the  question,  those  who 
understood  the  question  but  stifled  it  in  the  intoxication 
of  life,  those  who  had  understood  life  and  had  made  an 
end  of  it,  and  those  who  understood,  but  in  their  weakness 
waited  for   the  end  of    their  desperate    life.     I  saw  no 

47 


48  MY    CONFESSION 

others.  It  seemed  to  me  that  the  narrow  circle  of  learned, 
rich,  leisured  people,  to  which  I  belonged,  formed  all 
humanity,  and  that  those  billions  of  men  who  had  lived 
and  were  hving  then  were  just  a  kind  of  animals,  and 
not  men. 

No  matter  how  strange,  how  incredibly  incomprehensi- 
ble it  now  seems  to  me  that  I,  discussing  life,  should 
have  been  able  to  overlook  all  those  who  surrounded 
me  on  all  sides,  the  life  of  humanity,  that  I  should 
have  been  able  to  err  in  such  a  ridiculous  manner  as 
to  think  that  my  life,  and  the  life  of  a  Solomon  and 
a  Schopenhauer,  was  the  real,  the  normal  hfe,  while 
the  hfe  of  billions  was  a  circumstance  that  did  not 
deserve  consideration,  —  no  matter  how  strange  that 
all  appears  to  me  now,  it  was  nevertheless  so.  In  the 
aberration  of  my  pride  of  mind,  it  seepied  to  me  so 
incontestable  that  Solomon,  Schopenhauer,  and  I  had 
put  the  question  so  correctly  and  so  truly  that  there 
could  be  nothing  else,  —  it  seemed  so  incontestable  to 
me  that  all  those  billions  belonged  to  those  who  had 
not  yet  reached  the  whole  depth  of  the  question,-^ 
that  in  looking  for  the  meaning  of  life  I  never  thought : 
"  What  meaning  have  all  those  billions,  who  have  lived 
in  the  world,  ascribed  to  their  life  ? " 

I  lived  for  a  long  time  in  this  madness,  which,  not  in 
words,  but  in  deeds,  is  particularly  characteristic  of  us, 
the  most  liberal  and  learned  of  men.  But,  thanks  either 
to  my  strange,  physical  love  for  the  real  working  class, 
which  made  me  understand  it  and  see  that  it  is  not  so 
stupid  as  we  suppose,  or  to  the  sincerity  of  my  convic- 
tion, which  was  that  I  could  know  nothing  and  that  the 
best  that  I  could  do  was  to  hang  myself,  —  I  felt  that  if 
I  wanted  to  live  and  understand  the  meaning  of  life,  I 
ought  naturally  to  look  for  it,  not  among  those  who  had 
lost  the  meaning  of  life  and  wanted  to  kill  themselves, 
but  among  those  billions  departed  and  hving  men  who 


MY    CONFESSION  49 

had  been  carrying  their  own  lives  and  ours  upon  their 
shoulders.  And  I  looked  around  at  the  enormous  masses 
of  deceased  and  living  men,  —  not  learned  and  wealthy, 
but  simple  men,  —  and  I  saw  something  quite  different. 
I  saw  that  all  these  billions  of  men  that  lived  or  had 
lived,  all,  with  rare  exceptions,  did  not  fit  into  my 
subdivisions,  and  that  I  could  not  recognize  them  as 
not  understanding  the  question,  because  they  them- 
selves put  it  and  answered  it  with  surprising  clearness. 
Nor  could  I  recognize  them  as  Epicureans,  because  their 
lives  were  composed  rather  of  privations  and  suffering 
than  of  enjoyment.  Still  less  could  I  recognize  them 
as  senselessly  living  out  their  meaningless  lives,  because 
every  act  of  theirs  and  death  itself  was  explained  by  tbem. 
They  regarded  it  as  the  greatest  evil  to  kill  themselves. 
It  appeared,  then,  that  all  humanity  was  in  possession  of 
a  knowledge  of  the  meaning  of  life,  which  I  did  not  rec- 
ognize and  which  I  contemned.  It  turned  out  that 
rational  knowledge  did  not  give  any  meaning  to  life, 
excluded  life,  while  the  meaning  which  by  billions  of 
people,  by  all  humanity,  was  ascribed  to  life  was  based 
on  some  despised,  false  knowledge. 

The  rational  knowledge  in  the  person  of  the  learned 
and  the  wise  denied  the  meaning  of  life,  but  the  enor- 
mous masses  of  men,  all  humanity,  recognized  this 
meaning  in  an  irrational  knowledge.  This  irrational 
knowledge  was  faith,  the  same  that  I  could  not  help 
but  reject.  That  w^as  God  as  one  and  three,  the  crea- 
tion in  six  days,  devils  and  angels,  and  all  that  which 
I  could  not  accept  so  long  as  I  had  not  lost  my  senses. 

My  situation  was  a  terrible  one.  I  knew  that  I 
should  not  find  anything  on  the  path  of  rational  knowl- 
edge but  the  negation  of  life,  and  there,  in  faith,  nothing 
but  the  negation  of  reason,  which  was  still  more  impossi- 
ble than  the  negation  of  life.  From  the  rational  knowl- 
edge it  followed  that  life  was  an  evil  and   men  knew 


50  MY    CONFESSION 

it,  —  it  depended  on  men  whether  they  should  cease 
living,  and  yet  they  lived  and  continued  to  live,  and  I 
myself  lived,  though  I  had  known  long  ago  that  life  was 
meaningless  and  an  evil.  From  faith  it  followed  that,  in 
order  to  understand  life,  I  must  renounce  reason,  for 
which  alone  a  meaning  was  needed. 


IX. 

There  resulted  a  contradiction,  from  whicli  there  were 
two  ways  out :  either  what  I  called  rational  was  not  so 
rational  as  I  had  thought ;  or  that  which  to  me  appeared 
irrational  was  not  so  irrational  as  I  had  thought.  And  I 
began  to  verify  the  train  of  thoughts  of  my  rational 
knowledge. 

In  verifying  the  train  of  thoughts  of  my  rational 
knowledge,  I  found  that  it  was  quite  correct.  The 
deduction  that  hfe  was  nothing  was  inevitable ;  but  I 
saw  a  mistake.  The  mistake  was  that  I  had  not  rea- 
soned in  conformity  with  the  question  put  by  me.  The 
question  was,  "  Why  should  I  live  ? "  that  is,  "  What  real, 
indestructible  essence  will  come  from  my  phantasmal, 
destructible  life  ?  What  meaning  has  my  finite  exist- 
ence in  this  infinite  world  ? "  And  in  order  to  answer 
tliis  question,  I  studied  life. 

The  solutions  of  all  possible  questions  of  life  appar- 
ently could  not  satisfy  me,  because  my  question,  no 
matter  how  simple  it  appeared  in  the  beginning,  in- 
cluded the  necessity  of  explaining  the  finite  through 
the  infinite,  and  vice  versa. 

I  asked,  "What  is  the  extra-temporal,  extra-causal, 
extra-spatial  meaning  of  life  ? "  But  I  gave  an  answer 
to  the  question,  "  What  is  the  temporal,  causal,  spatial 
meaning  of  my  life  ?  "  The  result  was  that  after  a  long 
labour  of  mind  I  answered,  "  None." 

In  my  reflections  I  constantly  equated,  nor  could  I  do 
otherwise,  the  finite  with  the  finite,  the  infinite  with  the 

51 


52  MY    CONFESSION 

infinite,  and  so  from  that  resulted  precisely  what  had  to 
result :  force  was  force,  matter  was  matter,  will  was  will, 
infinity  was  infinity,  nothing  was  notliing,  —  and  nothing 
else  could  come  from  it. 

There  happened  something  like  what  at  times  takes 
place  in  mathematics :  you  think  you  are  solving  an 
equation,  when  you  have  only  an  identity.  The  rea- 
soning is  correct,  but  you  receive  as  a  result  the  answer : 
a  =  a,or  x  =  x,ov  0  =  0.  The  same  happened  with  my 
reflection  in  respect  to  the  question  about  the  meaning  of 
my  life.  The  answers  given  by  all  science  to  that  ques- 
tion are  only  identities. 

Indeed,  the  strictly  scientific  knowdedge,  that  knowl- 
edge which,  as  Descartes  did,  begins  with  a  full  doubt  in 
everything,  rejects  all  knowledge  which  has  been  taken 
on  trust,  and  builds  everything  anew  on  the  laws  of  rea- 
son and  experience,  cannot  give  any  other  answer  to 
the  question  of  life  than  what  I  received,  —  an  indefinite 
answer.  It  only  seemed  to  me  at  first  that  science  gave 
me  a  positive  answer,  —  Schopenhauer's  answer  :  "  Life 
has  no  meaning,  it  is  an  evil."  But  when  I  analyzed  the 
matter,  I  saw  that  the  answer  was  not  a  positive  one,  but 
that  it  was  only  my  feeling  which  expressed  it  as  such. 
The  answer,  strictly  expressed,  as  it  is  expressed  by  the 
Brahmins,  by  Solomon,  and  by  Schopenhauer,  is  only 
an  indefinite  answer,  or  an  identity,  0=0,  life  is  nothing. 
Thus  the  philosophical  knowledge  does  not  negate  any- 
thing, but  only  answers  that  the  question  cannot  be 
solved  by  it,  that  for  philosophy  the  solution  remains 
insoluble. 

When  I  saw  that,  I  understood  that  it  was  not  right 
for  me  to  look  for  an  answer  to  my  question  in  rational 
knowledge,  and  that  the  answer  given  by  rational  knowl- 
edge was  only  an  indication  that  the  answer  miglit  be  got 
if  the  question  were  differently  put,  but  only  when  into 
the  discussion  of  the  question  should  be  introduced  the 


MY    CONFESSION  53 

question  of  the  relation  of  the  finite  to  the  infinite.  I 
also  understood  that,  no  matter  how  irrational  and  mon- 
strous the  answers  might  be  that  faith  gave,  they  had  this 
advantage  that  they  introduced  into  each  answer  the  re- 
lation of  the  finite  to  the  infinite,  without  which  there 
could  be  no  answer. 

No  matter  how  I  may  put  the  question,  "  How  must  I 
live  ? "  the  answer  is,  "  According  to  God's  law."  "  What 
real  result  will  there  be  from  my  life  ?  "  —  "  Eternal  tor- 
ment or  eternal  bliss."  "  What  is  the  meaninsf  which  is 
not  destroyed  by  death?" — "The  union  with  infinite 
God,  paradise." 

Thus,  outside  the  rational  knowledge,  which  had  to  me 
appeared  as  the  only  one,  I  was  inevitably  led  to  recog- 
nize that  all  living  humanity  had  a  certain  other  irra- 
tional knowledge,  faith,  which  made  it  possible  to  live. 

All  the  irrationality  of  faith  remained  the  same  for 
me,  but  I  could  not  help  recognizing  that  it  alone  gave  to 
humanity  answers  to  the  questions  of  life,  and,  in  conse- 
quence of  them,  the  possibility  of  living. 

The  rational  knowledge  brought  me  to  the  recognition 
that  life  was  meaningless,  —  my  life  stopped,  and  I 
wanted  to  destroy  myself.  When  I  looked  around  at 
people,  at  all  humanity,  1  saw  that  people  lived  and 
asserted  that  they  knew  the  meaning  of  life.  I  looked 
back  at  myself :  I  hved  so  long  as  I  knew  the  meaning  of 
life.  As  to  other  people,  so  even  to  me,  did  faith  give 
the  meaning  of  life  and  the  possibility  of  living. 

Looking  again  at  the  people  of  other  countries,  contem- 
poraries of  mine  and  those  passed  away,  I  saw  again  the 
same.  Where  life  had  been,  there  faith,  ever  since 
humanity  had  existed,  had  given  the  possibility  of  living, 
and  the  chief  features  of  faith  were  everywhere  one  and 
the  same. 

No  matter  what  answers  faith  may  give,  its  every 
answer  gives  to  the  finite  existence  of  man  the  sense  of 


54  MY    CONFESSION 

the  infinite,  —  a  sense  which  is  not  destroyed  hy  suffer- 
ing, privation,  and  death.  Consequently  in  faith  alone 
could  we  find  the  meaning  and  possibility  of  life.  What, 
then,  was  faith  ?  I  understood  that  faith  was  not  merely 
an  evidence  of  things  not  seen,  and  so  forth,  not  revela- 
tion (that  is  only  the  description  of  one  of  the  symptoms 
of  faith),  not  the  relation  of  man  to  man  (faith  has  to  be 
defined,  and  then  God,  and  not  first  God,  and  faith  through 
him),  not  merely  an  agreement  with  what  a  man  was  told, 
as  faith  was  generally  understood,  —  that  faith  was  the 
knowledge  of  the  meaning  of  human  life,  in  consequence 
of  which  man  did  not  destroy  himself,  but  lived.  Faith 
is  the  power  of  life.  If  a  man  hves  he  believes  in  some- 
thing. If  he  did  not  believe  that  he  ought  to  live  for 
some  purpose,  he  would  not  live.  If  he  does  not  see  and 
understand  the  phantasm  of  the  finite,  he  believes  in  that 
finite ;  if  he  understands  the  phantasm  of  the  finite,  he 
must  believe  in  the  infinite.  Without  faith  one  cannot 
live. 

I  recalled  the  whole  coune  of  my  internal  work,  and 
I  was  frightened.  Now  it  vas  clear  to  me  that,  in 
order  that  a  man  might  live,  he  either  must  not  see  the 
infinite,  or  must  have  such  an  explanation  of  the  meaning 
of  life  that  the  finite  is  equated  to  the  infinite.  I  had 
such  an  explanation,  but  it  was  useless  to  me  so  long  as 
I  beheved  in  the  finite  and  tried  to  verify  it  by  reason. 
Before  the  light  of  reason  all  the  former  explanation  was 
scattered  to  the  winds ;  but  there  came  a  time  when  I 
stopped  believing  in  the  finite.  Then  I  began  on  a  ra- 
tional basis  to  build  from  what  I  knew  an  explanation 
which  would  give  me  the  meaning  of  life ;  but  nothing 
came  of  it.  With  the  best  minds  of  humanity  I  arrived 
at  the  result  that  0=0,  and  I  was  very  much  surprised 
when  I  received  such  a  solution,  whereas  nothing  else 
could  have  come  from  it. 

What  had  I  been  doing  when  I  had  been  looking  for 


MY    CONFESSION  55 

an  answer  in  the  experimental  sciences  ?  I  wanted  to 
tiud  out  wliy  I  lived,  and  for  this  I  studied  everything 
which  was  outside  of  me.  It  is  clear  that  I  could  have 
learned  many  things,  but  certainly  nothing  which  I 
needed. 

What  had  I  been  doing  when  I  searched  for  an  answer 
in  the  philosopliical  sciences  ?  1  had  studied  the  thoughts 
of  those  beings  who  had  been  in  the  same  condition  that 
I  was  in,  and  who  had  no  answer  to  the  question  of  why 
I  lived.  It  is  clear  that  I  could  not  have  learned  any- 
thing but  what  I  already  knew,  that  it  was  impossible  to 
know  anything. 

What  am  I  ?  A  part  of  the  infinite.  In  these  few 
words  hes  the  whole  problem. 

Is  it  possible  humanity  has  begun  only  yesterday  to 
put  this  question  ?  And  has  no  one  before  me  put  this 
question,  wliich  is  so  simple  that  it  is  on  the  tip  of  the 
tongue  of  every  intelhgent  child  ? 

This  question  has  been  put  ever  since  men  have  ex- 
isted ;  and  ever  since  men  have  existed,  it  has  been  clear 
that  for  the  solution  of  this  question  it  is  equally  insufii- 
cient  to  equate  the  infinite  to  the  infinite  and  the  finite  to 
the  finite,  and  ever  since  men  have  existed  the  relations 
of  the  finite  to  the  infinite  have  been  found  and  expressed. 

All  these  concepts,  with  wliich  we  equate  the  finite  to 
the  infinite  and  receive  a  meaning  of  life  and  a  concept 
of  God,  freedom,  goodness,  we  subject  to  logical  investiga- 
tion. And  these  concepts  do  not  stand  the  critique  of 
reason. 

If  it  were  not  so  terrible  it  would  be  ridiculous,  with 
what  pride  and  self-contentment  we,  like  children,  take 
a  watch  to  pieces,  pull  out  the  spring,  make  a  toy  from  it, 
and  then  wonder  why  the  watch  has  stopped  going. 

What  is  necessary  and  precious  is  a  solution  of  the  con- 
tradiction of  the  finite  and  the  infinite  and  an  answer  to 
the  question  of  hfe,  such  as  would  make  life    possible. 


56    V  MY    CONFESSION 

And  this  one  solution,  which  we  find  everywhere,  at  all 
times,  and  with  all  the  nations,  —  a  solution  brought 
down  from  a  time  in  which  the  life  of  humanity  is  lost 
for  us,  a  solution  which  is  so  ditticult  that  we  can  do 
nothing  like  it,  we  frivolously  destroy  in  order  to  put 
once  more  the  question  which  is  inherent  in  every  man, 
and  for  which  we  have  no  answer. 

The  conception  of  an  infinite  God,  of  the  divineness  of 
the  soul,  of  the  connection  of  human  affairs  with  God,  of 
the  unity,  the  essence  of  the  soul,  of  the  human  concep- 
tion of  moral  good  and  evil,  are  concepts  that  have  been 
worked  out  in  the  remote  infinitude  of  human  thought, 
concepts  without  which  there  would  be  no  life  and  no  I, 
and  yet  I,  rejecting  all  that  labour  of  all  humanity,  want 
to  do  everything  anew  and  in  my  own  way. 

I  did  not  think  so  at  that  time,  but  the  germs  of  the 
thoughts  were  already  witliin  me.  I  saw,  in  the  first 
place,  that  my  position,  with  that  of  Schopenhauer  and 
Solomon,  in  spite  of  our  wisdom,  was  stupid :  we  under- 
stood life  to  be  an  evil,  and  yet  we  lived.  It  is  stupid, 
because,  if  life  is  stupid,  —  and  I  am  so  fond  of  what  is 
rational,  —  life  ought  to  be  destroyed,  and  there  would 
not  be  any  one  to  deny  it.  In  the  second  place,  I  saw 
that  all  our  reflections  wliirled  about  in  a  magic  circle, 
like  a  wheel  that  does  not  catch  in  the  cog.  No  matter 
how  much  and  how  well  we  might  reflect  upon  the 
matter,  we  could  not  get  an  answer  to  the  question,  ex- 
cept that  0  was  always  equal  to  0,  and  so  our  path  was 
evidently  faulty.  In  the  third  place,  I  began  to  under- 
stand that  in  the  answers  which  faith  gave  there  was 
preserved  the  profoundest  wisdom  of  humanity,  and  that 
I  had  no  right  to  refute  them  on  the  basis  of  reason,  and 
that  these  main  answers  were  the  only  ones  that  gave  an 
answer  to  the  question  of  life. 


X. 

I  UNDERSTOOD  that,  but  that  did  not  make  it  easier  for 
ine. 

I  was  prepared  now  to  accept  any  faith,  so  long  as 
it  did  not  demand  from  me  a  direct  denial  of  reason, 
which  would  have  been  a  lie.  And  so  I  studied  Bud- 
dhism and  Mohammedanism  from  books,  and,  more  still, 
Christianity  both  from  books  and  from  living  men  who 
were  about  me. 

Naturally  I  first  of  all  turned  to  believing  men  of  my 
own  circle,  to  learned  men,  to  Orthodox  theologians,  to 
old  monks,  to  theologians  of  the  new  shade,  and  even 
to  so-called  new  Christians,  who  professed  salvation 
through  faith  in  redemption.  I  clung  to  these  believers 
and  questioned  them  about  their  beliefs,  and  tried  to  find 
out  in  what  they  saw  the  meaning  of  life. 

Although  I  made  all  possible  concessions  and  avoided 
all  kinds  of  disputes,  I  was  unable  to  accept  the  faiths  of 
those  men,  —  I  saw  that  what  they  gave  out  as  faith  was 
not  an  explanation,  but  an  obfuscation  of  the  meaning  of 
life,  and  that  they  themselves  affirmed  their  faith,  not  in 
order  to  answer  tbat  question  of  life  which  had  brought 
me  to  faith,  but  for  some  other  aims  which  were  foreign 
to  me. 

T  remember  the  agonizing  feeling  of  terror  lest  I  return 
to  ray  former  despair  after  hope,  which  T  experienced 
many,  many  a  time  in  my  relations  with  these  people. 

The  more  they  went  into  details  in  order  to  expound 
to  me  their  doctrines,  the  more  clearly  did  I  see  their 

67 


58  MY    CONFESSION 

error  and  the  loss  of  my  hope  of  finding  in  their  faith  the 
explanation  of  the  meaning  of  hfe. 

It  was  not  that  in  the  exposition  of  their  doctrine  they 
mixed  in  with  the  Christian  truths,  which  had  always 
been  near  to  me,  many  unnecessary  and  irrational  things, 
—  it  was  not  that  which  repelled  me ;  what  repelled  me 
was  that  the  lives  of  these  people  were  precisely  what  my 
own  life  was,  with  this  difference  only,  that  theirs  did  not 
correspond  to  those  principles  which  they  expounded  in 
their  doctrines.  I  saw  clearly  that  they  were  deceiv- 
ing themselves,  and  that,  like  myself,  they  had  no  other 
meaning  of  life  than  to  live  so  long  as  life  was  possible, 
and  to  take  everything  that  the  hand  could  hold.  I  saw 
that  because,  if  they  possessed  that  meaning  by  which 
the  terror  of  privations,  suffering,  and  death  is  abolished, 
they  would  not  be  afraid  of  them.  But  they,  the  behevers 
of  our  circle,  just  like  myself,  lived  in  plenty  and  abun- 
dance, tried  to  increase  and  preserve  their  possessions, 
were  afraid  of  privations,  suffering,  and  death,  and,  like 
myself  and  all  of  us  unbelievers,  lived  gratifying  their 
desires,  and  lived  just  as  badly,  if  not  worse,  than  the 
unbelievers. 

No  reflections  could  convince  me  of  the  truthfulness  of 
their  faith.  Only  such  actions  as  would  have  shown  me 
that  they  had  such  a  meaning  of  life  that  poverty,  sick- 
ness, death,  so  terrible  to  me,  were  not  terrible  to  them, 
could  have  convinced  me.  But  such  actions  I  did  not 
perceive  among  these  varied  believers  of  our  circle.  On 
the  contrary,  I  saw  such  actions  among  the  people  of  our 
circle  who  were  the  greatest  unbelievers,  but  never  among 
the  so-called  believers. 

I  saw  that  the  faith  of  these  men  was  not  the  faith 
I  was  in  search  of,  and  that  their  faith  was  not  a  faith, 
but  one  of  the  Epicurean  solaces  of  life.  I  saw  that  this 
faith  was,  perhaps,  good  enough,  if  not  as  a  consolation, 
as  a  certain  distraction  for  a  repentant  Solomon  on  his 


MY    CONFESSION  55 

death-bed,  but  it  was  not  good  for  the  enormous  majority 
of  humanity,  which  is  called  not  to  live  in  solace,  enjoying 
the  labours  of  others,  but  to  create  life. 

In  order  that  all  humanity  may  be  able  to  live,  in  order 
that  they  may  continue  living,  giving  a  meaning  to  life, 
they,  those  billions,  must  have  another,  a  real  knowledge  of 
faith,  for  not  the  fact  that  1,  with  Solomon  and  Schopen- 
hauer, did  not  kill  myself  convinced  me  of  the  existence 
of  faith,  but  that  these  billions  had  lived  and  had  borne 
us,  me  and  Solomon,  on  the  waves  of  life. 

Then  I  began  to  cultivate  the  ace|uaintance  of  the 
believers  from  among  the  poor,  the  simple  and  unlettered 
folk,  of  pilgrims,  monks,  dissenters,  peasants.  The  doctrine 
of  these  people  from  among  the  masses  was  also  the 
Christian  doctrine  that  the  quasi-believers  of  our  circle 
professed.  With  the  Christian  truths  were  also  mixed  in 
very  many  superstitions,  but  there  was  this  difference: 
the  superstitious  of  our  circle  were  quite  unnecessary  to 
them,  had  no  connection  with  their  lives,  were  only  a 
kind  of  an  Epicurean  amusement,  while  the  superstitions 
of  the  believers  from  among  the  labouring  classes  were 
to  such  an  extent  blended  with  their  life  that  it  would 
have  been  impossible  to  imagine  it  without  these  super- 
stitions,—  it  was  a  necessary  condition  of  that  life.  I 
began  to  examine  closely  the  lives  and  beliefs  of  these 
people,  and  the  more  I  examined  them,  the  more  did  I 
become  convinced  that  they  had  the  real  faith,  that  their 
faith  was  necessary  for  them,  and  that  it  alone  gave  them 
a  meaning  and  possibility  of  life.  In  contradistinction  to 
what  I  saw  in  our  circle,  where  life  without  faith  was 
possible,  and  where  hardly  one  in  a  thousand  professed 
to  be  a  believer,  among  them  there  was  hardly  one  in  a 
thousand  who  was  not  a  believer.  In  contradistinction 
to  what  I  saw  in  our  circle,  where  all  life  passed  in  idle- 
ness, amusements,  and  tedium  of  life,  I  saw  that  the  whole 
life  of  these  people  was  passed  in  hard  work,  and  that 


60  MY    CONFESSION 

they  were  satisfied  with  life.  In  contradistinction  to  the 
people  of  our  circle,  wdio  struggled  aud  nuirniured  against 
fate  because  of  their  privations  and  their  suffering,  these 
people  accepted  diseases  and  sorrows  without  any  per- 
plexity or  opposition,  but  with  the  calm  and  firm  con- 
viction that  it  was  all  for  good.  In  contradistinction  to 
the  fact  that  the  more  intelligent  we  are,  the  less  do  we 
understand  the  meaning  of  life  and  the  more  do  we  see 
a  kind  of  a  bad  joke  in  our  suffering  and  death,  these 
people  live,  suffer,  and  approach  death,  and  suffer  in  peace 
and  more  often  in  joy.  In  contradistinction  to  the  fact 
that  a  calm  death,  a  death  without  terror  or  despair,  is 
the  greatest  exception  in  our  circle,  a  restless,  insubmis- 
sive,  joyless  death  is  one  of  the  greatest  exceptions  among 
the  masses.  And  of  such  people,  who  are  deprived  of 
everything  which  for  Solomon  and  for  me  constitutes  the 
only  good  of  life,  and  who  withal  experience  the  greatest 
happiness,  there  is  an  enormous  number.  I  cast  a  broader 
glance  about  me.  I  examined  the  life  of  past  and  present 
vast  masses  of  men,  and  I  saw  people  who  in  like  manner 
had  understood  the  meaning  of  life,  who  had  known  how 
to  live  and  die,  not  two,  not  three,  not  ten,  but  hundreds, 
thousands,  millions.  All  of  them,  infinitely  diversified  as 
to  habits,  intellect,  culture,  situation,  all  equally  aud  quite 
contrary  to  my  ignorance  knew  the  meaning  of  life  and 
of  death,  worked  calmly,  bore  privations  and  suffering, 
lived  and  died,  seeing  in  that  not  vanity,  but  good. 

I  began  to  love  those  people.  The  more  I  penetrated 
into  their  life,  the  life  of  the  men  now  living,  and  the 
life  of  men  departed,  of  whom  I  had  read  and  heard, 
the  more  did  I  love  them,  and  the  easier  it  became  for  me 
to  live.  Thus  I  lived  for  about  two  years,  and  within 
me  took  place  a  transformation,  which  had  long  been 
working  within  me,  and  the  germ  of  which  had  always 
been  in  me.  What  happened  with  me  was  that  the  life 
of  our  circle,  —  of  the  rich  and  the  learned,  —  not  only 


MY    CONFESSION 


61 


disgusted  me,  but  even  lost  all  its  meaning.  All  our  acts, 
retiections,  sciences,  arts,  —  all  that  appeared  to  me  in  a 
new  light.  I  saw  that  all  that  was  mere  pampering  of 
the  appetites,  and  that  no  meaning  could  be  found  in  it ; 
but  the  life  of  all  the  working  masses,  of  all  humanity, 
which  created  life,  presented  itself  to  me  in  its  real  sig- 
nificance. I  saw  that  that  was  life  itself  and  that  the 
meaning  given  to  this  life  was  truth,  and  I  accepted  it. 


XI. 

When  I  considered  that  this  belief  repelled  me  and 
seemed  meaningless  when  it  was  professed  by  people  who 
lived  contrary  to  this  belief,  and  that  it  attracted  me  and 
appeared  rational  when  I  saw  that  men  lived  by  it,  —  I 
understood  why  I  had  rejected  that  belief  and  had  found 
it  meaningless,  while  now  I  accepted  it  and  found  it  full 
of  meaning.  I  saw  that  I  had  erred  and  how  I  had  erred. 
I  had  erred  not  so  much  because  I  had  reasoned  incor- 
rectly as  because  I  had  lived  badly.  I  saw  that  the 
truth  had  been  veiled  from  me  not  so  much  by  the  aber- 
ration of  my  mind  as  by  my  life  itself  in  those  exclu- 
sive conditions  of  Epicureanism,  of  the  gratification  of 
the  appetites,  in  which  I  had  passed  it.  I  saw  that  the 
question  of  what  my  life  was,  and  the  answer  to  it,  that 
it  was  an  evil,  were  quite  correct.  What  was  incorrect 
was  that  the  answer,  which  had  reference  to  me  only, 
had  been  transferred  by  me  to  life  in  general.  I  asked 
myself  what  my  life  was,  and  received  as  an  answer: 
"  An  evil  and  an  absurdity."  And  indeed,  my  hfe  — 
that  hfe  of  pampered  appetites  and  whims  —  was  mean- 
ingless and  evil,  and  so  the  answer,  "  Life  is  evil  and 
meaningless,"  had  reference  only  to  my  life,  and  not  to 
human  life  in  general.  I  comprehended  the  truth,  which 
I  later  found  in  the  gospel,  that  men  had  come  to  love 
the  darkness  more  than  the  light  because  their  deeds 
were  bad,  for  those  who  did  bad  deeds  hated  the  light 
and  did  not  go  to  it,  lest  their  deeds  be  disclosed.  I  saw 
that  in  order  to  comprehend  the  meaning  of  life  it  was 

62 


MT   CONFESSION  63 

necessary,  first  of  all,  that  life  should  not  be  meaningless 
and  evil,  and  then  only  was  reason  needed  for  the  under- 
standing of  it.  I  comprehended  why  I  had  so  long 
walked  around  such  a  manifest  truth,  and  that  if  I  were 
to  think  and  speak  of  the  life  of  humanity,  I  ought  to 
think  and  speak  of  the  life  of  humanity,  and  not  of  the 
life  of  a  few  parasites  of  life.  This  truth  had  always 
been  a  truth,  just  as  two  times  two  was  four,  but  I  had 
not  recognized  it  because,  if  I  recognized  that  two  times 
twc  was  four,  I  should  have  had  to  recognize  that  I  was 
not  good,  whereas  it  was  more  important  and  obligatory 
for  me  to  feel  myself  good  than  to  feel  that  two  times 
two  was  four.  I  came  to  love  good  people  and  to  hate 
myself,  and  I  recognized  the  truth.  Now  everything 
became  clear  to  me. 

What  would  happen  if  a  hangman,  who  passes  all  his 
life  in  torturing  and  chopping  off  heads,  or  a  desperate 
drunkard,  or  an  insane  man,  who  has  passed  all  his  life 
in  a  dark  room  which  he  has  defiled,  and  who  imagines 
that  he  will  perish  if  he  leaves  that  room,  —  if  any  of 
them  should  ask  himself  what  life  is,  naturally  he  could 
get  no  other  answer  to  this  question  than  that  life  is  the 
greatest  evil,  and  the  answer  of  the  insane  man  would 
be  quite  correct,  but  for  him  alone.  What  if  I  was  just 
such  a  madman  ?  What  if  all  of  us,  rich  men  of  leisure, 
were  such  madmen  ?  And  I  comprehended  that  we  were 
indeed  such  madmen,  —  I  certainly  was. 

Indeed,  a  bird  lives  for  the  purpose  of  flying,  collecting 
its  food,  building  its  nest,  and  when  I  see  the  bird  doing 
that,  I  rejoice  at  its  joy.  A  goat,  a  hare,  a  wolf  exists  in 
such  a  way  that  they  have  to  feed,  multiply,  and  rear 
their  young  ones,  and  when  they  do  so,  I  have  the  firm 
conviction  that  they  are  happy,  and  that  their  life  is 
rational.  What,  then,  ought  man  to  do  ?  He  must  pro- 
cure his  sustenance  like  the  animals,  but  with  this  dif- 
ference, that  he  will  perish  if  he  procures  it  by  himself, 


64  MY    CONFESSION 

—  he  must  procure  it  not  for  himself,  but  for  everybody. 
When  he  does  so,  I  have  the  firm  consciousness  that  he 
is  happy  and  that  his  hfe  is  rational.  What  had  I  been 
doing  during  my  thirty  years  of  conscious  life  ?  Not 
only  had  I  procured  no  sustenance  for  everybody,  but  not 
even  for  myself.  I  had  lived  as  a  parasite  and,  upon  ask- 
ing myself  why  I  lived,  I  had  received  the  answer :  "  For 
no  reason."  If  the  meaning  of  life  consisted  in  sustain- 
ing it,  how  could  I,  who  for  thirty  years  had  busied  my- 
self not  with  sustaining  life,  but  with  ruining  it  in  myself 
and  in  others,  have  received  any  other  answer  than  that 
my  life  was  an  absurdity  and  au  evil  ?  It  really  was  an 
absurdity  and  an  evil. 

The  hfe  of  the  w,orld  goes  on  by  somebody's  will, — 
somebody  is  doing  some  kind  of  work  with  the  Hfe  of 
this  world  and  with  our  lives.  In  order  to  have  the  hope 
of  understanding  the  meaning  of  this  will,  it  is  first  of  all 
necessary  to  fulfil  it,  to  do  that  which  is  wanted  of  us. 
If  I  am  not  going  to  do  what  is  wanted  of  me,  I  shall 
never  be  able  to  understand  what  is  wanted  of  me,  and 
much  less,  what  is  wanted  of  all  of  us  and  of  the  whole 
world. 

If  a  naked,  starving  beggar  is  picked  up  on  a  cross- 
road, is  brought  under  the  roof  of  a  beautiful  building,  is 
given  to  eat  and  drink,  and  is  made  to  move  a  certain 
stick  up  and  down,  it  is  eddent  that  before  the  beggar  is 
to  discuss  why  he  has  been  taken  up,  why  he  should 
move  that  stick,  whether  the  arrangement  of  the  whole 
building  is  sensible,  he  must  first  move  the  stick.  When 
he  does  so,  he  will  comprehend  that  the  stick  moves  a 
pump,  that  the  pump  raises  the  water,  and  that  the  water 
flows  down  the  garden  beds.  Then  he  will  be  taken  out 
of  the  covered  well  and  will  be  put  to  do  some  other 
work,  and  he  will  garner  the  fruit  and  will  enter  into 
the  joy  of  his  master,  and,  passing  from  the  lower  to  the 
higher  work,  comprehending  more  and  more  the  arrange- 


MY    CONFESSION"  65 

ment  of  the  whole  buildiug,  and  taking  part  in  it,  will 
never  think  of  asking  why  he  is  there,  and  certainly  will 
not  rebuke  the  master. 

Even  thus  the  Master  is  not  rebuked  by  those  who  do 
his  will,  — ■  simple,  working,  illiterate  people,  —  those 
whom  we  have  regarded  as  beasts  ;  but  we,  the  wiseacres, 
eat  the  Master's  food  and  do  not  do  any  of  the  things  that 
the  Master  wants  us  to  do,  but  instead  of  doing  them  we 
sit  down  in  a  circle  and  discuss  :  "  Why  should  we  move 
the  stick  ?  That  is  stupid."  And  we  thought  it  out. 
We  reasoned  it  out  that  the  Master  was  stupid,  or  did 
not  exist,  and  we  were  wise,  only  we  felt  that  we  were  not 
good  for  anything  and  ought  to  free  ourselves  from  our 
hve,R 


XII. 

The  recognition  of  the  error  of  the  rational  knowledge 
helped  me  to  free  myself  from  the  seduction  of  idle  spec- 
ulation. The  conviction  that  the  knowledge  of  the  truth 
could  be  found  only  through  life  incited  me  to  doubt  the 
correctness  of  my  life ;  but  what  saved  me  was  that  I 
managed  to  tear  myself  away  from  exclusiveness  and  to 
see  the  real  life  of  the  working  people  and  to  understand 
that  that  alone  was  the  real  hfe.  I  saw  that  if  I  wanted 
to  comprehend  life  and  its  meaning,  I  must  hve,  not  the 
life  of  a  parasite,  but  the  real  life,  and  accept  the  meaning 
wliich  real  humanity  has  given  to  it  and,  blending  with 
that  life,  verify  it. 

At  that  same  time  the  following  happened  with  me : 
during  all  the  period  of  that  year,  when  I  asked  myself 
nearly  every  minute  whether  I  had  not  better  make  an 
end  of  myself  by  means  of  the  noose  or  the  bullet,  my 
heart,  side  by  side  with  the  train  of  thoughts  and  of  ob- 
servations, of  which  I  have  spoken,  was  tormented  by  an 
agonizing  feeling.  This  feeling  I  cannot  name  otherwise 
than  the  search  after  God. 

I  say  that  this  search  after  God  was  not  a  reflection, 
but  a  feeling,  because  this  search  did  not  result  from  the 
train  of  my  thoughts,  —  it  was  even  diametrically  opposed 
to  it,  —  but  from  the  heart.  It  was  a  feeling  of  terror,  of 
orphanhood,  of  loneliness  amidst  everything  foreign,  and 
of  a  hope  for  somebody's  succour. 

Although  I  was  fully  convinced  of  the  impossibility  of 

G6 


MY   CONFESSION  67 

proving  the  existence  of  God  (for  Kant  had  proved  it  to 
me,  and  I  fully  comprehended  his  statement  that  it  was 
not  ixtssible  to  prove  it),  1  nevertheless  tried  to  find  God, 
hoped  to  hud  him,  and,  following  my  old  habit,  turned 
with  prayers  to  him  whom  I  was  looking  for  and  could 
not  find.  Now  I  tried  to  verify  in  my  mind  the  proofs 
of  Kant  and  of  Schopenhauer  about  the  impossibihty  of 
proving  the  existence  of  God,  and  now  I  refuted  them. 
Cause,  I  said  to  myself,  is  not  such  a  category  of  reasoning 
as  space  and  time.  If  I  am,  there  is  a  cause  for  it,  and  a 
first  cause.  And  tliis  first  cause  of  all  is  what  is  called 
Gotl.  I  stopped  at  this  thought  and  tried  with  my  whole 
being  to  recognize  the  presence  of  this  cause.  The  moment 
I  recognized  that  tliere  was  a  force  in  the  power  of  which 
I  was,  I  felt  the  possibility  of  living.  But  I  asked  myself  : 
"  What  is  this  cause,  this  force  ?  How  am  I  to  think  of 
it  ?  In  what  relation  shall  I  stand  to  that  which  I  call 
God  ? "  and  nothing  but  familiar  answers  occurred  to  me : 
"  He  is  the  creator,  the  provider."  These  answers  did  not 
satisfy  me,  and  I  felt  that  what  was  necessary  for  life  was 
being  lost  in  me.  I  was  horrified  and  began  to  pray  to 
him  whom  I  was  searching  after  to  help  me,  and  the 
more  I  prayed,  the  more  evident  it  became  to  me  that  he 
did  not  hear  me  and  that  there  was  nobody  to  turn  to. 
With  despair  in  my  heart  because  there  was  no  God,  I 
said  :  "  0  Lord,  have  mercy  on  me  !  Save  me  !  0  Lord 
my  God,  teach  me  ! "  And  nobody  had  mercy  on  me,  and 
I  felt  that  my  life  was  stopping. 

Again  and  again  I  arrived  from  various  sides  at  the 
same  recognition  that  I  could  not  have  appeared  in  the 
world  without  any  cause  or  reason  or  meaning,  that  I 
could  not  be  such  a  callow  bird  that  has  tumbled  out  of 
its  nest,  as  I  felt  myself  to  be.  Let  me,  fallen  bird,  lie  on 
my  back  and  pipe  in  the  high  grass,  —  I  am  piping  because 
I  know  that  my  mother  caiTied  me  in  her  womb,  hatched 
and  warmed  me,  fed  and  loved  me.     "\\liere  is  she,  that 


68  MY    CONFESSION 

mother  of  mine  ?  If  I  have  been  abandoned,  who  has 
done  it  ?  I  cannot  conceal  from  myself  that  some  one 
bore  me  loving  me.    Who  is  that  some  one  ?     Again  God. 

He  knows  and  sees  my  searching,  my  despair,  my 
struggle.  "  He  is,"  I  said  to  myself.  I  needed  but  for  a 
moment  to  recognize  that,  when  life  immediately  rose  in 
me,  and  I  felt  the  possibility  and  joy  of  existence.  But 
again  I  passed  over  from  the  recognition  of  the  existence 
of  God  to  the  search  after  the  relation  to  him,  and  again 
there  presented  himself  to  me  that  God,  our  creator  in 
three  persons,  who  sent  his  Sou  the  Eedeemer.  Again 
that  God,  who  was  separate  from  the  world,  from  me, 
melted  like  a  piece  of  ice,  melted  under  my  very  eyes, 
and  again  nothing  was  left,  and  again  the  source  of  life 
ran  dry  ;  I  fell  into  despair  and  felt  that  there  was  noth- 
ing left  for  me  to  do  but  kill  myself.  What  was  worst 
of  all,  I  felt  that  I  could  not  do  even  that. 

Not  twice,  or  three  times,  but  dozens,  hundreds  of  times 
I  arrived  at  these  states,  now  of  joy  and  animation,  and 
now  again  of  despair  and  the  consciousness  of  the  impos- 
sibility of  life. 

I  remember,  it  was  early  in  ,spring,  I  was  by  myself  in 
the  forest,  listening  to  the  sounds  of  the  woods.  I  listened 
and  thought  all  the  time  of  one  and  the  same  thing  that 
had  formed  the  subject  of  my  thoughts  for  the  last  three 
years.     I  was  again  searching  after  God. 

"  All  right,  there  is  no  God,"  I  said  to  myself,  "  there  is 
not  such  a  being  as  would  be,  not  my  concept,  but  reality, 
just  like  my  whole  life,  —  there  is  no  such  being.  And 
nothing,  no  iniracles,  can  prove  him  to  me,  because  the 
miracles  would  be  my  concept,  and  an  irrational  one  at 
that. 

"  But  my  idea  about  God,  about  the  one  I  am  searching 
after  ? "  I  asked  myself.  "  Where  did  that  idea  come 
from  ? "  And  with  this  thought  the  joyous  waves  of  life 
again  rose  in  me.     Everything  about  me  revived,  received 


MY    CONFESSION  69 

a  meaning  ;  but  my  joy  did  not  last  long,  —  the  mind  con- 
tinued its  work. 

"  The  concept  of  God  is  not  God,"  I  said  to  myself. 
"  A  concept  is  what  takes  place  within  me ;  the  concept 
of  God  is  what  I  can  evoke  or  can  not  evoke  in  myself. 
It  is  not  that  which  I  am  searcMng  after.  I  am  trying 
to  find  that  without  which  life  could  not  be."  And  again 
everything  began  to  dig  around  me  and  within  me,  and 
I  wanted  again  to  kill  myself. 

Then  I  looked  at  myself,  at  what  was  going  on  within 
me,  and  I  recalled  those  deaths  and  revivals  which  had 
taken  place  within  me  hundreds  of  times.  I  remembered 
that  I  lived  only  w  hen  1  believed  in  God.  As  it  had  been 
before,  so  it  was  even  now :  I  needed  only  to  know  about 
God,  and  I  lived ;  I  needed  to  forget  and  not  beheve  in 
him,  and  I  died. 

What,  then,  are  these  revivals  and  deaths  ?  Certainly  I 
do  not  live  when  I  lose  my  faith  in  the  existence  of  God ; 
I  should  have  killed  myself  long  ago,  if  I  had  not  had  the 
dim  hope  of  finding  him.  "  So  what  else  am  I  looking 
for  ?  "  a  voice  called  out  within  me.  "  Here  he  is.  He  is 
that  without  which  one  cannot  live.  To  know  God  and 
live  is  one  and  the  same  thing.     God  is  life." 

"  Live  searching  after  God,  and  then  there  will  be  no 
life  without  God."  And  stronger  than  ever  all  was  lighted 
up  within  me  and  about  me,  and  that  hght  no  longer 
abandoned  me. 

Thus  I  was  saved  from  suicide.  When  and  how  this 
transformation  took  place  in  me  I  could  not  say.  Just  as 
imperceptibly  and  by  degrees  as  my  force  of  hfe  had 
waned,  and  I  had  arrived  at  the  impossibility  of  hving,  at 
the  arrest  of  Hfe,  at  the  necessity  of  suicide,  just  so  by 
degrees  and  imperceptibly  did  that  force  of  life  return  to 
me.  Strange  to  say,  the  force  of  life  which  returned 
to  me  was  not  a  new,  but  the  same  old  force  which  had 
drawn  me  on  in  the  first  period  of  my  life. 


70  MY    CONPESSIOK 

I  returned  in  everything  to  the  most  remote,  the  child- 
ish and  the  youthful.  I  returned  to  the  belief  in  that  will 
which  had  produced  me  and  which  wanted  something  of 
me ;  I  returned  to  this,  that  the  chief  and  only  purpose 
of  my  life  was  to  be  better,  that  is,  to  live  more  in  accord 
with  that  will ;  I  returned  to  this,  that  the  expression  of 
this  will  I  could  find  in  that  which  all  humanity  had 
worked  out  for  its  guidance  in  the  vanishing  past,  that  is, 
I  returned  to  the  faith  in  God,  in  moral  perfection,  and  in 
the  tradition  which  had  handed  down  the  meaning  of  life. 
There  was  only  thi^  difference,  that  formerly  it  had  been 
assumed  unconsciously,  while  now  I  knew  that  I  could 
not  live  without  it. 

This  is  what  seemed  to  have  happened  with  me :  I  do 
niot  remember  when  I  was  put  in  a  boat,  was  pushed  off 
from  some  unknown  shore,  had  pointed  out  to  me  the 
direction  toward  another  shore,  had  a  pair  of  oars  given 
into  my  inexperienced  hands,  and  was  left  alone.  I  phed 
my  oars  as  well  as  I  could,  and  moved  on  ;  but  the  farther 
I  rowed  toward  the  middle,  the  swifter  did  the  current 
become  which  bore  me  away  from  my  goal,  and  the  more 
frequently  did  I  come  across  oarsmen  Mice  myself,  who 
were  carried  aw^ay  by  the  current.  There  were  lonely 
oarsmen,  who  continued  to  row ;  there  were  large  boats, 
immense  ships,  full  of  people ;  some  struggled  against  the 
current,  others  submitted  to  it.  The  farther  I  rowed,  the 
more  did  I  look  down  the  current,  whither  aU  those  boats 
were  carried,  and  forget  the  direction  which  had  been 
pointed  out  to  me.  In  the  middle  of  the  current,  in  the 
crush  of  the  boats  and  ships  which  bore  me  down,  I  lost 
my  direction  completely  and  threw  down  the  oars.  On 
every  side  of  me  sailing  vessels  and  rowboats  were  borne 
down  the  current  with  merriment  and  rejoicing,  and  the 
people  in  them  assured  me  and  each  other  that  there  could 
not  even  be  any  other  direction,  and  I  believed  them  and 
went  down  the  stream  with   them.     I  was    carried    far 


MY    CONFESSION  71 

away,  so  far  away,  that  I  heard  the  noise  of  the  rapids 
where  I  should  be  wrecked,  and  saw  boats  that  had 
already  been  wrecked  there.  I  regained  my  senses.  For 
a  long  time  I  could  not  understand  what  had  happened 
with  me.  I  saw  before  me  nothing  but  ruin  toward  which 
I  was  rushing  and  of  which  I  was  afraid  ;  nowhere  did  I 
see  any  salvation,  and  I  did  not  know  what  to  do ;  but, 
on  looking  back,  I  saw  an  endless  number  of  boats  that 
without  cessation  stubbornly  crossed  the  current,  and  I 
thought  of  the  shore,  the  oars,  and  the  direction,  and  be- 
gan to  make  my  way  back,  up  the  current  and  toward  the 
shore. 

That  shore  was  God,  the  direction  was  tradition,  the 
oars  were  the  freedom  given  me  to  row  toward  the  shore, 
—  to  unite  myself  with  God.  Thus  the  force  of  life  was 
renewed  in  me,  and  I  began  to  hve  once  more. 


XIII. 

I  RENOUNCED  the  life  of  our  circle,  having  corae  to 
recognize  that  that  was  not  life,  but  only  a  likeness  of 
life,  that  the  conditions  of  superabundance  in  which  we 
lived  deprived  us  of  the  possibility  of  understanding  life, 
and  that,  in  order  that  I  might  understand  life,  I  had  to 
understand  not  the  life  of  the  exceptions,  not  of  us,  the 
parasites  of  life,  but  the  life  of  the  simple  working  classes, 
of  those  who  produced  life,  and  the  meaning  which  they 
ascribed  to  it.  The  simple  working  classes  about  me 
were  the  Eussian  masses,  and  I  turned  to  them  and  to 
the  meaning  which  they  ascribed  to  life.  This  meaning, 
if  it  can  be  expressed,  was  like  this : 

Every  man  has  come  into  this  'world  by  the  will  of 
God.  God  has  so  created  man  that  every  man  may  either 
ruin  his  soul  or  save  it.  The  problem  of  each  man  in  life 
is  to  save  his  soul ;  in  order  to  save  his  soul,  he  must  live 
according  to  God's  command,  and  to  live  according  to 
God's  command,  he  must  renounce  all  the  solaces  of  life, 
must  work,  be  humble,  suffer,  and  be  merciful.  The 
masses  draw  this  meaning  from  the  whole  doctrine,  trans- 
mitted to  them  by  past  and  present  pastors  and  by  tra- 
dition, which  lives  among  the  masses. 

This  meaning  was  clear  to  me  and  near  to  my  heart. 
But  with  this  meaning  of  the  popular  faith,  our  non-dis- 
senting masses,  among  whom  I  lived,  inseparably  connect 
much  which  repelled  me  and  seemed  inexplicable  to  me : 
the  sacraments,  the  church  service,  the  fasts,  the  worship- 
ping of  relics  and  images.     The  masses  cannot  separate 

72 


MY    CONFESSION  73 

one  from  the  other,  nor  could  I.  No  matter  how  ^trange 
seemed  to  me  much  of  what  entered  into  the  faith  of  the 
masses,  I  accepted  everything,  attended  services,  stood  up 
in  the  morning  and  in  the  evening  to  pray,  fasted,  pre- 
pared myself  for  the  communion,  and  at  first  my  reason 
did  not  revolt  against  all  that.  What  formerly  had 
seemed  impossible  to  me,  now  did  not  provoke  any  oppo- 
sition in  me. 

My  relations  toward  the  faith  now  and  then  were  quite 
difl'ereut.  Foruierly  life  itself  had  appeared  to  me  full  of 
meaning,  and  faith  had  appeared  to  me  as  an  arbitrary 
assertion  of  certain  entirely  unnecessary  and  irrational 
principles  which  were  not  connected  with  life.  I  had 
asked  myself  then  what  meaning  these  principles  had,  and, 
on  convincing  myself  that  they  had  none,  I  had  rejected 
them.  But  now,  on  the  contrary,  I  knew  firmly  that  my 
life  had  no  meaning  and  could  have  none,  and  the  princi- 
ples of  faith  not  only  did  not  appear  to  me  as  unnecessary, 
but  I  had  been  brought  by  incontestable  experience  to  the 
conviction  that  only  those  principles  of  faith  gave  a  mean- 
ing to  life.  Formerly  I  used  to  look  upon  -hem  as  upon 
an  entirely  useless,  confused  mass  of  writing,  hut  now, 
though  I  did  not  understand  them,  I  knew  that  there  was 
a  meaning  in  them,  and  I  said  to  myself  that  I  must  learn 
to  understand  them. 

I  made  the  following  reflection :  I  said  to  myself  that 
the  knowledge  of  faith  jflowed,  like  all  humanity  with  its 
reason,  from  a  mysterious  beginning.  This  beginning  is 
God,  the  beginning  of  the  human  body  and  of  man's  rea- 
son. Just  as  my  body  has  devolved  to  me  from  God, 
thus  my  reason  and  my  comprehension  of  life  have 
reached  me,  and  so  all  those  stages  of  the  development  of 
the  comprehension  of  life  cannot  be  false.  Everything 
which  people  believe  sincerely  must  be  the  truth ;  it  may 
be  differently  expressed,  but  it  cannot  be  a  lie,  and  so,  if 
it  presents  itself  to  me  as  a  lie,  it  means  only  that  I  do 


74  MY    CONFESSION 

not  understand  it.  Besides,  I  said  to  myself :  the  essence 
of  every  faith  consists  in  giving  to  hfe  a  meaning  which 
is  not  destroyed  by  death.  Naturally,  in  order  that  faith 
may  answer  the  question  of  a  king  dying  in  luxury,  of  an 
old  slave  worn  out  by  work,  of  an  unthinking  child,  of  a 
wise  old  man,  of  a  half-witted  old  woman,  of  a  happy 
young  woman,  of  a  youth  swayed  by  passions,  of  all  men 
under  all  the  most  varied  conditions  of  life  and  education, 
—  naturally,  if  there  is  one  answer  which  replies  to  the 
eternal  question  of  life,  "  Why  do  I  live,  and  what  will 
become  of  my  life?"  —  this  question,  though  one  in  its 
essence,  must  be  endlessly  diversified  in  its  manifestations, 
and,  the  more  this  answer  is  one,  the  more  sincere  and 
profound  it  is,  the  stranger  and  the  more  contorted  it 
must,  naturally,  appear  in  its  attempts  at  expression, 
according  to  the  education  and  position  of  each  individual. 
But  these  reflections,  which  for  me  justified  the  strangeness 
of  the  ritualistic  side  of  faith,  were  none  the  less  insuffi- 
cient to  permit  me  in  what  for  me  was  the  only  business 
of  life,  in  faith,  to  commit  acts  of  which  I  was  doubtful. 
I  wanted  wi^h  all  the  forces  of  my  soul  to  be  able  to 
become  one  with  the  masses,  by  executing  the  ritualistic 
side  of  their  faith ;  but  I  was  unable  to  do  so.  I  felt 
that  I  should  be  lying  to  myself  and  making  hght  of  what 
for  me  was  holy,  if  I  did  it.  But  here  I  was  aided  by  the 
new  Russian  theological  works. 

These  theologians  show  that  the  fundamental  dogma  of 
faith  is  the  infallible  church.  From  the  recognition  of  this 
dogma  follows,  as  its  necessary  consequence,  the  truth  of 
everything  professed  by  the  church.  The  church  as  a 
collection  of  believers  united  in  love  and,  therefore,  in 
possession  of  the  true  knowledge,  became  the  foundation 
of  my  faith.  I  said  to  myself  that  divine  truth  could  not 
be  accessible  to  one  person,  —  that  it  was  revealed  only 
to  a  totality  of  men  united  in  love.  In  order  to  attain 
truth,  we  must  not  divide  i  and  in  order  not  to  divide,  we 


MY    CONFESSION  75 

must  love  and  make  peace  with  what  we  disagree  witiL 
Truth  will  be  revealed  to  love,  and  so,  if  you  do  not  sub- 
mit to  the  ritual  of  the  churcJi,  you  impair  love ;  and 
if  you  impair  love,  you  are  deprived  of  the  possibility  of 
discovering  the  truth.  At  that  time  I  did  not  see  the 
sophism  which  was  contained  in  that  reflection.  I  did 
not  see  that  the  union  in  love  could  give  the  greatest  love, 
but  by  no  means  divine  truth  as  it  is  expressed  in  definite 
words  in  the  Niceue  Symbol ;  nor  did  I  at  all  see  that 
love  could  in  any  way  make  a  certain  expression  of  truth 
obligatory  for  union.  At  that  time  I  did  not  see  the 
mistakes  of  that  reasoning  and,  thanks  to  it,  I  found 
it  possible  to  receive  and  execute  all  the  rites  of  the 
Orthodox  Church,  without  understanding  the  greater  part 
of  them.  I  tried  then  with  all  the  powers  of  my  soul  to 
avoid  all  reflections  and  contradictions,  and  tried  to  ex- 
plain, as  reasonably  as  possible,  those  church  rules  with 
which  I  came  in  contact. 

In  executing  the  rites  of  the  church,  I  humbled  reason 
and  submitted  myself  to  that  tradition  which  all  humanity 
had.  I  allied  myself  with  my  ancestors,  with  my  beloved 
parents  and  grandparents.  They  and  all  those  before 
them  had  believed  and  had  procreated  me.  I  alhed  my- 
self also  with  millions  of  people  from  the  masses,  whom 
I  respected.  Besides,  these  acts  had  nothing  bad  in  them- 
selves (bad  I  called  a  pampering  of  the  appetites).  In 
getting  up  early  for  church  service,  I  knew  that  I  was 
doing  well,  if  for  no  other  reason,  because  in  humbling 
the  pride  of  my  reason,  and  in  allying  myself  with  my 
ancestors  and  contemporaries,  in  the  name  of  finding  the 
meaning  of  life,  I  sacrificed  my  bodily  rest.  The  same 
happened  while  I  was  preparing  myself  for  communion, 
while  I  was  saying  the  daily  prayers  and  making  the 
obeisances,  while  I  was  observing  all  the  fasts.  No  mat- 
ter how  insignificant  these  sacrifices  were,  they  were 
brought  in  the  name  of  what  was  good.     I  prepared  my- 


76  MY    CONFESSION 

self  for  communion,  fasted,  observed  the  proper  prayers  at 
home  and  at  church.  While  listening  to  divine  service,  I 
tried  to  grasp  every  word  of  it  and  gave  it  a  meaning  every 
time  I  could.  At  mass  the  most  important  words  for  me 
were :  "  Let  us  love  each  other  in  unity  of  thought ! " 
The  following  words,  "  In  singleness  of  thought  we  profess 
the  Father  and  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost,"  I  omitted, 
because  I  could  not  understand  them. 


XIV. 

It  was  so  necessary  for  me  at  that  time  to  believe  in 
order  to  exist  that  I  unconsciously  concealed  from  myself 
the  contradictions  and  obscurities  of  the  doctrine.  But 
there  was  a  limit  to  these  attempts  to  elucidate  the  rites. 
If  the  responsory  became  clearer  and  clearer  to  me  in  its 
main  words ;  if  I  managed  to  explain  to  myself  in  some 
way  the  words,  "  And  having  mentioned  our  Lady  the 
Most  Holy  Mother  of  God  and  all  the  saints,  we  shall 
give  ourselves,  and  one  another,  and  our  lives  to  Christ 
the  God  ; "  if  I  explained  the  frequent  repetitions  of  the 
prayers  for  the  Tsar  and  his  relatives  by  assuming  that 
they  were  more  than  others  subject  to  temptation  and 
so  needed  more  praying  for,  —  the  prayers  about  van- 
quishing the  enemy  and  foe,  even  though-  I  explained 
them  on  the  ground  that  an  enemy  was  an  evil,  —  these 
prayers  and  many  others,  hke  the  Cherubical  prayers  and 
the  whole  sacrament  of  the  offertory  or  "  To  the  chosen 
leader,"  and  so  forth,  almost  two-thirds  of  the  service, 
either  had  no  explanation  at  all,  or  I  felt  that,  finding 
explanations  for  them,  I  was  lying  and  thus  entirely  de- 
stroyed my  relation  to  God,  and  was  losing  every  possibility 
of  faith. 

The  same  I  experienced  in  celebrating  the  chief  holi- 
days. To  remember  the  Sabbath,  that  is,  devote  one 
day  to  communion  with  God,  was  comprehensible  to  me. 
But  this  chief  holiday  was  a  celebration  of  the  event  of 
the  resurrection,  the  reahty  of  which  I  could  not  imagine 
or  comprehend.     And  by  this  name  of  resurrection  the 

77 


78  MY    CONFESSION 

day  which  is  celebrated-  each  week  is  called  in  Russian, 
and  on  those  days  took  place  the  sacrament  of  the  eucha- 
rist,  which  was  absolutely  incomprehensible  to  me.  All 
the  other  twelve  holidays,  except  Christmas,  were  in  com- 
memoration of  miracles,  which  I  tried  not  to  think  of  in 
order  not  to  deny  :  Ascension  Day,  Pentecost,  Epiphany, 
the  feast  of  the  Intercession  of  the  Holy  Virgin,  and  so 
forth.  In  celebrating  these  holidays  and  feeling  that  an 
importance  was  ascribed  to  what  to  me  formed  and  were 
the  opposite  of  important,  I  tried  either  to  discover  ex- 
planations which  would  soothe  me,  or  I  shut  my  eyes,  in 
order  not  to  see  what  was  offensive  to  me. 

This  happened  very  strongly  with  me  in  the  most 
usual  sacraments  which  are  regarded  as  most  important, 
at  christening  and  at  communion.  Here  I  came  in  con- 
tact, not  with  incomprehensible,  but  absolutely  compre- 
hensible actions  :  the  actions  seemed  offensive  to  me,  and 
I  was  placed  in  a  dilemma,  either  to  lie,  or  reject  them. 

I  shall  never  forget  the  agonizing  feeling  which  I  ex- 
perienced on  the  day  when  I  went  to  communion  for  the 
first  time  after  many  years.  The  services,  the  confession, 
the  rules,  — :  all  that  was  comprehensible  to  me  and  pro- 
duced in  me  a  pleasurable  consciousness  of  having  the 
meaning  of  Life  revealed  to  me.  The  communion  itself  I 
explained  to  myself  as  an  action  performed  in  commemo- 
ration of  Christ  and  signifying  the  purification  from  sin 
and  the  full  acceptance  of  the  teaching  of  Christ.  If  this 
explanation  was  artificial,  I  did  not  perceive  its  artifici- 
ality. It  was  so  pleasurable  for  me  to  humble  and  abase 
myself  before  the  spiritual  father,  a  simple,  timid  priest, 
and  to  turn  out  all  the  dirt  of  ray  soul  to  him,  while 
repenting  all  my  vices  ;  so  pleasural)le  to  blend  in  tliought 
with  the  humility  of  the  Fathers  who  had  written  the 
prayers  of  the  rules  ;  so  pleasurable  to  become  one  with  all 
behevers,  past  and  present  that  I  did  not  feel  the  artifi- 
ciality of  my  explanation.     But  when  I  approached  the 


MY    CONFESSION  79 

Royal  Doors,  and  the  priest  made  me  repeat  that  I  be- 
lieved that  what  1  was  going  to  swallow  was  the  real 
body  and  blood,  I  was  cut  to  the  quick ;  that  was  not 
merely  a  false  note,  it  was  a  cruel  demand  made  by  one 
who  apparently  had  never  known  what  faith  was. 

It  is  only  now  that  I  permit  myself  to  say  that  it  was  a 
cruel  demand  ;  at  that  time  I  did  not  even  think  of  it,  — 
then  it  merely  pained  me  inexpressibly.  1  was  no  longer 
in  that  condition  in  which  I  had  been  in  my  youth,  think- 
ing that  everything  in  life  was  clear ;  I  had  arrived  at 
faith  because  outside  of  faith  I  had  found  nothing,  abso- 
lutely notliing,  but  certain  perdition,  and  so  it  was  not 
possible  to  reject  that  faith,  and  I  submitted  to  it.  I 
found  in  my  soul  a  feeling  which  helped  me  to  bear  it. 
That  was  the  feehug  of  self-abasement  and  humility.  I 
humbled  myself  and  swallowed  this  blood  and  body  with- 
out any  blasphemous  feehng,  with  the  desire  to  beheve, 
but  the  blow  had  been  given  to  me.  Knowing  in  ad- 
vance what  was  awaiting  me,  I  could  not  go  there  a 
second  time. 

I  continued  to  do  the  rites  of  the  church  and  still 
believed  that  in  the  faith  which  I  was  following  there 
was  the  truth,  and  in  me  took  place  what  now  is  clear  to 
me,  but  then  seemed  strange  to  me. 

When  I  listened  to  the  conversation  of  an  ilhterate 
peasant,  of  a  pilgrim,  about  God,  about  faith,  about  life, 
about  salvation,  the  knowledge  of  the  faith  was  revealed 
to  me.  When  I  came  in  contact  with  the  masses  and 
heard  their  opinions  about  life  and  about  faith,  I  under- 
stood the  truth  more  and  more.  The  same  was  true 
during  the  reading  of  the  menaions  and  of  the  prologues, 
for  they  became  my  favourite  reading.  Leaving  out  the 
miracles,  upon  which  I  looked  as  upon  fables  expressing 
an  idea,  this  reading  disclosed  the  meaning  of  life  to  me. 
There  I  found  the  lives  of  Macarius  the  Great,  of  Prince 
loasaph  (the  history  of  Buddha),  there  were  the  words  of 


80  MY    CONFESSION 

John  Chrysostom,  the  stories  of  the  traveller  in  the  well, 
of  the  monk  who  had  found  the  gold,  of  Peter  the  Martyr  ; 
there  was  the  history  of  the  martyrs,  all  of  whom  pro- 
claimed one  and  the  same,  that  death  did  not  exclude 
life ;  there  was  the  history  of  those  who  were  illiterate 
and  foolish  and  ignorant  of  the  doctrine  of  the  church, 
and  yet  had  been  saved. 

But  I  needed  only  to  come  in  contact  with  learned 
believers,  or  to  take  their  books,  and  a  doubt  of  myself, 
dissatisfaction,  a  madness  of  quarrelling,  arose  in  me, 
and  I  felt  that  the  more  I  entered  into  their  speeches, 
the  more  did  I  depart  from  the  truth  and  walk  toward  the 
precipice 


XV. 

How  often  had  I  envied  the  peasants  their  ilhteracy 
and  ignorance  !  From  those  statements  of  the  faith  from 
which  for  me  resulted  apparent  absurdities,  there  resulted 
nothing  false  to  them ;  they  could  accept  them  and  could 
believe  the  truth,  that  truth  in  which  I  myself  believed. 
For  me,  unfortunate  man,  alone  it  was  evident  that  the 
truth  was  bound  up  with  the  lie  with  thin  threads,  and 
that  I  could  not  accept  it  in  such  a  form. 

Thus  I  lived  for  three  years,  and  at  first,  when  I,  like  a 
catechumen,  approached  truth  by  degrees,  guided  only  by 
feeling  on  my  path  toward  the  light,  these  conflicts  did  not 
startle  me  so  much.  Whenever  I  did  not  understand  a 
thing,  I  said  to  myself,  "  I  am  guilty,  I  am  bad."  But  the 
more  I  began  to  be  permeated  by  the  truths  which  I  stud- 
ied, the  more  did  they  become  a  basis  of  hfe,  the  more 
oppressive  and  striking  did  the  conflicts  grow,  and  the 
sharper  did  the  line  stand  out  between  what  I  did  not 
understand,  because  I  could  not  understand  it,  and  that 
which  could  not  be  understood  otherwise  than  by  lying  to 
myself. 

In  spite  of  these  doubts  and  sufferings,  I  still  clung  to 
Orthodoxy.  But  there  appeared  questions  of  life,  which 
it  became  necessary  to  solve,  and  here  the  solution  of 
these  questions  by  the  church  —  contrary  to  the  very 
foundations  of  the  faith  in  which  I  believed  —  made  me 
definitely  renounce  all  communion  with  Orthodoxy. 
These  questions  were,  in  the  first  place,  the  relation  of 
the  Orthodox  Church  to  the  other  churches,  to  Catholi- 

81 


82  MY    CONFESSION 

cism  and  to  the  so-called  dissenters.  During  that  time  I, 
on  account  of  my  interest  in  religion,  came  in  contact 
with  believers  of  different  creeds,  with  Catholics,  Protes- 
tants, Old  Ceremonialists,  Milkers,  and  so  forth,  and 
among  them  I  found  a  large  number  of  morally  elevated 
men  and  sincere  believers,  I  wanted  to  be  a  brother  to 
these  people.  What  happened  ?  The  tenet  which  prom- 
ised to  me  that  it  would  unite  all  in  one  faith  and  love, 
the  same  tenet,  in  the  person  of  its  best  representatives, 
told  me  that  all  these  people  were  living  in  the  lie,  that 
what  gave  them  the  strength  of  hfe  was  the  temptation  of 
the  devil,  and  that  we  alone  were  in  possession  of  the 
only  possible  truth.  I  saw  that  the  Orthodox  people  re- 
garded all  those  who  did  not  profess  the  same  faith  with 
them  as  heretics,  precisely  as  the  Catholics  regarded  Or- 
thodoxy as  a  heresy  ;  I  saw  that  toward  all  who  did  not 
profess  faith  with  external  symbols  and  words,  as  Ortho- 
doxy did.  Orthodoxy,  though  trying  to  conceal  it,  assumed 
a  hostile  attitude,  which  could  not  be  otherwise,  for,  in  the 
first  place,  the  assertion  that  you  are  living  in  a  he,  while 
I  have  the  truth,  is  the  most  cruel  of  words  which  one 
man  can  say  to  another,  and,  in  the  second  place,  because 
a  man  who  loves  his  children  and  brothers  cannot  help 
assuming  a  hostile  attitude  toward  people  who  wish  to 
convert  his  children  and  brothers  to  a  false  faith.  This 
hostility  increases  in  proportion  as  the  knowledge  of  the 
doctrine  increases.  And  I,  who  had  assumed  the  truth  to 
be  in  the  union  of  love,  was  involuntarily  startled  to  find 
that  that  religious  teaching  destroyed  precisely  that  which 
it  ought  to  build  up. 

The  offence  is  so  manifest  to  us  educated  people,  who 
have  lived  in  countries  where  several  religious  are  professed, 
and  who  have  seen  that  contemptuous,  self-confident,  im- 
perturbable negative  attitiide  which  a  Catholic  assumes 
toward  an  Orthodox  or  a  Protestant  and  an  Orthodox 
toward  a  Catholic  or  a  Protestant,  and  a  Protestant  to» 


MY    CONFESSION" 


8^ 


ward  both  the  others,  and  the  same  relation  among  the  Old 
Ceremonialists,  Pashkovians,  Shakers,  and  members  of  all 
religions,  that  the  very  manifestedness  of  the  offence  at 
first  seems  perplexing.  You  say  to  yourself  :  "  It  cannot 
be  so  simple  and  yet  that  people  should  not  see  that  when 
two  statements  mutually  negate  each  other,  neither  the 
one  nor  the  other  can  have  the  one  truth  which  faith 
must  have.  There  must  be  something  wrong  in  it. 
There  must  be  some  explanation."  I  was  sure  there 
was,  and  I  tried  to  find  that  explanation,  and  read  every- 
thing I  could  in  regard  to  this  matter  and  took  counsel 
with  everybody  I  could.  I  received  no  explanation  except 
the  one  which  makes  the  Sumski  hussars  think  that  the 
first  regiment  in  the  world  is  that  of  the  Silmski  hussars, 
while  the  yellow  hussars  think  that  the  first  regiment  in  the 
world  is  that  of  the  yellow  hussars.  The  clerical  persons 
of  all  different  creeds,  their  best  representatives,  told  me 
nothing  but  that  they  believed  that  they  had  the  truth, 
while  the  others  were  in  error,  and  that  all  they  could  do 
was  to  pray  for  the  others.  I  went  to  see  archimandrites, 
bishops,  hermits,  ascetics,  and  asked  them,  and  not  one  of 
them  made  even  an  attempt  at  explaining  that  offensive 
state  of  affairs.  Only  one  of  them  explained  everything 
to  me,  but  he  explained  it  in  such  a  way  that  I  did  not 
ask  others  after  that. 

I  have  said  that  for  every  unbeliever  who  turns  toward 
religion  (all  our  young  generation  is  subject  to  making 
this  search),  this  appears  as  thft  first  question  :  Why  is  the 
truth  not  in  Lutheranisra,  not  in  Catholicism,  but  in 
Orthodoxy  ?  He  is  taught  in  the  gymnasium,  and  he 
cannot  help  knowing  —  what  the  peasants  do  not  know 
—  that  a  Protestant  or  Catholic  professes  in  the  same  way 
the  one  truth  of  his  own  religion.  Historical  proofs, 
which  by  each  religion  are  bent  in  its  favour,  are  insuffi- 
cient. Is  it  not  possible,  I  said,  to  look  at  the  teaching 
from  a  more  elevated  point,  so  that  from  the  height  of  the 


84  MY    CONFESSION 

teaching  all  differences  may  disappear,  as  they  disappear 
for  the  true  believer  ?  Can  we  not  proceed  on  the  path  on 
which  we  have  started  with  the  Old  Ceremouialists  ? 
They  assert  that  the  cross,  the  hallelujah,  and  the  pro- 
cession around  the  altar  as  we  practise  them  are  wrong. 
We  say  :  "  You  beheve  in  the  Nicene  Symbol  and  the 
seven  sacraments  as  we  do,  so  let  us  stick  to  that,  and  in 
everything  else  do  as  you  please."  We  have  united  with 
them  by  putting  the  essential  in  faith  above  the  unessen- 
tial. Now  why  can  we  not-  say  to  the  Catholics,  "  You 
believe  in  this  and  that,  which  is  the  chief  thing,  but  in 
relation  to  Filioque  and  the  Pope  do  as  you  please "  ? 
Can  we  not  say  the  same  to  the  Protestants,  by  agreeing 
with  them  on  the  chief  points  ?  My  interlocutor  agreed 
with  me,  but  he  said  that  such  concessions  would  produce 
a  disaffection  toward  the  spiritual  power  because  of  its  de- 
parting from  the  ancestral  faith,  whereas  it  was  the  busi- 
ness of  the  spiritual  power  to  preserve  in  all  its  purity  the 
Grffico-Russian  Orthodox  faith  as  transmitted  to  it  from 
antiquity. 

I  understood  it  all.  I  was  looking  for  faith,  for  the 
power  of  life,  and  they  were  looking  for  the  best  means  of 
performing  before  people  certain  human  obligations,  and, 
in  performing  these  human  works,  they  performed  them  in 
a  human  manner.  Let  them  say  as  much  as  they  please 
about  their  compassion  for  their  erring  brothers,  about 
praying  for  them  before  the  throne  of  the  Highest,  —  for 
the  performance  of  human  acts  force  is  needed,  and  that 
has  always  been  appHed  and  always  will  be  applied. 
If  two  creeds  consider  themselves  right,  they  will  preach 
their  teachings,  and  if  a  lying  doctrine  is  preached  to  the 
inexperienced  sons  of  the  church  which  is  in  the  truth, 
the  church  cannot  help  burning  the  books  and  removing  the 
man  who  is  seducing  her  sons.  What  is  to  be  done  with 
that  sectarian  who,  in  the  opinion  of  Orthodoxy,  of  rehg- 
ion,  is  burning  with  a  false  fire  and  in  the  most  impor- 


MY    CONFESSION  85 

tant  matter  of  life,  in  religion,  is  seducing  the  sous  of  the 
church  ?  What  else  can  be  done  with  him  but  have  his 
head  chopped  off  or  hiui  imprisoned  ?  In  the  time  of 
Alexis  Mikhaylovich  they  burned  him  at  the  stake,  that 
is,  they  applied  the  greatest  punishment  of  that  time  ;  in 
our  day  they  also  apply  the  greatest  punishment,  by 
putting  him  in  sohtary  confinement.  I  turned  my  atten- 
tion to  what  was  being  done  in  the  name  of  religion,  and 
I  was  frightened  and  almost  entirely  renounced  Ortho- 
doxy. 

The  second  relation  of  the  church  to  vital  questions 
was  its  relation  to  war  and  capital  punishment. 

Just  then  Eussia  had  a  war  on  its  hands  and  Eussians 
began  to  kill  their  brothers  in  the  name  of  Christian  love. 
It  was  impossible  not  to  think  of  it.  It  was  impossible 
not  to  see  that  murder  was  an  evil  which  was  contrary  to 
the  first  foundations  of  any  religdon.  And  yet  they 
prayed  in  the  churches  for  the  success  of  our  arms,  and 
the  teachers  of  religion  acknowledged  this  murder  as  a  busi- 
ness which  resulted  from  faith.  And  not  only  were  there 
these  murders  in  the  war,  but  during  all  the  disturbances, 
which  followed  after  the  war,  I  saw  the  orders  of  the 
church,  her  teachers,  monks,  and  hermits,  approve  the 
murder  of  erring,  helplesr.  youths.  I  turned  my  attention 
to  what  was  done  by  men  who  professed  Christianity, 
and  I  was  horrified. 


XVL 

I  STOPPED  doubting :  I  was  completely  convinced  that 
in  that  knowledge  of  faith  which  I  bad  accepted  not 
everything  was  true.  Formerly  I  should  have  said  that 
the  whole  doctrine  was  wrong,  but  now  I  could  not  say 
so.  The  whole  nation  had  the  knowledge  of  the  truth, 
—  so  much  was  certain,  —  or  else  it  could  not  live„  Be- 
sides, this  knowledge  of  the  truth  was  now  accessible  to 
me,  and  I  had  lived  with  it  and  had  felt  all  its  truth ;  but 
in  this  knowledge  there  was  also  a  lie.  Of  that  I  could 
have  no  doubt.  Everything  which  before  that  had  re- 
pelled me  now  stood  vividly  up  before  me.  Although  I 
saw  that  in  the  masses  there  was  less  of  that  alloy  of  the 
lie  which  repelled  me  than  in  the  representatives  of 
the  church,  —  I  nevertheless  saw  that  in  the  beliefs 
of  the  masses  the  lie  was  mixed  in  with  the  truth. 

Whence  had  come  the  lie,  and  whence  the  truth  ? 
Both  the  lie  and  the  truth  are  to  be  found  in  tradition,  in 
the  so-called  Holy  Tradition  and  Scripture.  The  lie  and 
the  truth  have  been  transmitted  by  what  is  called  the 
church.  Willy-nilly  I  was  led  to  the  study,  the  investi- 
gation, of  this  Scripture  and  Tradition,  —  an  investigation 
of  which  heretofore  I  had  been  so  much  afraid. 

I  turned  to  the  study  of  that  theology  which  at  one 
time  I  had  rejected  with  such  contempt,  as  something 
useless.  At  that  time  it  had  appeared  to  me  as  a  series 
of  useless  absurdities ;  at  that  time  I  was  on  all  sides 
surrounded  by  phenomena  of  life  which  had  seemed  clear 
to  me  and  filled  with  meaning ;  now  I  should  have  been 

86 


MY    CONFESSION  87 

glad  to  reject  what  would  not  go  into  my  head,  but  there 
was  no  way  out.  On  this  doctrine  is  reared,  —  or  with 
it,  at  least,  is  iusolubly  connected,  —  that  one  knowledge 
of  the  meaning  of  hfe  which  has  been  revealed  to  me. 
However  strange  this  may  be  for  my  old,  settled  head, 
this  is  the  one  hope  of  salvation.  I  must  carefully,  at- 
tentively analyze  it,  in  order  that  I  may  understand  it,  — 
not  as  1  understand  a  statement  of  science,  —  that  I  am 
not  looking  for,  nor  can  I  look  for  it,  knowing  the  peculi- 
arity of  the  knowledge  of  faith.  I  am  not  going  to  look 
for  an  explanation  of  everything.  I  know  that  the  expla- 
nation of  everything  must,  like  the  beginning  of  every- 
thing, be  lost  in  intinity.  But  I  want  to  understand  in 
such  a  way  as  to  be  brought  to  what  is  inevitably  inex- 
plicable ;  I  want  everything  which  is  inexplicable  to  be 
such,  not  because  the  demands  of  my  reason  are  incorrect 
(they  are  correct,  and  outside  of  them  I  cannot  under- 
stand anything),  but  because  I  see  the  limitations  of  my 
mind.  I  want  to  comprehend  in  such  a  way  that  every 
inexplicable  statement  may  present  itself  to  me  as  a 
necessity  of  my  reason  and  not  as  an  obligation  to 
beheve. 

That  in  the  teachmg  there  is  truth,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  for  me ;  but  it  is  equally  certain  to  me  that  it  also 
contains  the  lie,  and  I  must  find  the  truth  and  the  lie 
and  separate  one  from  the  other.  And  to  this  I  proceed. 
"What  1  have  found  in  this  teaching  that  is  false,  what 
truth  I  have  found  in  it,  and  to  what  conclusions  I  have 
been  drawn,  forms  the  following  parts  of  a  work  which,  if 
it  deserves  it  and  anybody  needs  it,  will  no  doubt  be 
printed  somewhere  at  some  future  time. 

1879. 


This  was  written  by  me  three  years  ago.  Those  parts 
will  be  printed. 

Now,  the  other  day  as  I  looked  over  and  returned  to 
that  train  of  thought  and  to  those  feelings  which  were  in 
me  when  I  passed  through  all  that,  I  had  a  dream.  This 
dream  expressed  to  me  in  concise  form  what  I  had  lived 
through  and  described,  and  so  I  think  that  for  those  who 
have  understood  me  the  description  of  this  dream  will 
refresh  and  collect  into  one  all  that  has  been  at  such  a 
length  told  in  these  pages.     Here  is  the  dream. 

I  see  that  I  am  lying  on  my  bed.  I  feel  neither  well 
nor  ill :  I  am  lying  on  my  back.  But  I  begin  to  think 
whether  it  is  right  for  me  to  lie  down ;  my  legs  somehow 
do  not  feel  comfortable  :  either  I  have  not  enough  space 
to  stretch  them  or  the  bed  is  not  even, —  in  any  case  I 
feel  uncomfortable ;  I  move  my  legs  and  at  the  same 
time  begin  to  consider  how  and  on  what  I  am  lying,  which 
has  never  occurred  to  me  before.  I  examine  my  bed,  and 
I  see  that  I  am  lying  on  plaited  rope  strips  that  are 
attached  to  the  side  pieces  of  the  bed.  My  feet  are  lying 
on  one  such  strip,  my  thighs  on  another,  —  my  legs  are 
just  uncomfortable.  For  some  reason  I  know  that  these 
strips  may  be  moved,  and  with  the  motion  of  my  legs  I 
push  away  the  extreme  strip  under  my  feet,  thinking  that 
it  will  be  more  comfortable  that  way.  But  I  have  pushed 
it  away  too  far,  and  I  try  to  fetch  it  back  with  a  motion 
of  my  legs,  when  the  strip  under  my  thighs  slips  away, 

88 


MY    CONFESSION  89 

too,  and  my  legs  hang  down.  I  move  my  whole  body  in 
order  to  get  myself  in  a  good  position,  quite  sure  that  I 
will  fix  myself  right;  but  with  this  motion  other  strips 
slip  away  and  change  their  positions  under  me,  and  I  see 
that  the  matter  is  only  getting  worse :  the  whole  lower 
part  of  my  body  slips  and  hangs  down,  but  my  feet  do 
not  reach  the  ground.  I  hold  on  only  with  the  upper 
part  of  my  back,  and  I  feel  not  only  uncomfortable,  but 
for  some  reason  also  nauseated.  It  is  only  then  that  I 
ask  myself  what  before  has  not  entered  my  head.  1  ask 
myself :  "  Where  am  I,  and  on  what  am  I  lying  ?  "  I  look 
around  and  first  of  all  glance  beneath  me,  where  my  body 
hangs  down,  and  whither,  I  feel,  I  must  drop  at  once.  I 
look  down  and  do  not  believe  my  eyes.  I  am  not  only  on 
a  height,  which  is  like  the  top  of  a  very  high  tower  or 
mountain,  but  on  a  height  such  as  I  could  never  have 
imagined. 

I  cannot  make  out  whether  I  see  anything  down  below, 
in  that  bottomless  pit,  over  which  I  am  banging,  and 
whither  I  am  being  drawn.  My  heart  is  compressed, 
and  I  experience  terror.  It  is  terrible  to  look  there.  If  I 
look  down,  I  feel  that  I  shall  at  once  slip  from  my  last 
strip,  and  perish.  I  do  not  look.  But  not  to  look  is  even 
worse,  for  I  think  of  what  will  happen  to  me  if  I  slip  down 
from  the  last  strip.  I  feel  that  terror  makes  me  lose  my 
last  hold,  and  slowly  my  back  sKps  lower  and  lower.  An- 
other moment  and  I  shall  fall  off.  Just  then  the  thought 
occurs  to  me  that  it  cannot  be  the  truth.  It  is  a  dream. 
Awaken  !  I  try  to  awaken,  but  I  cannot.  What  shall  I 
do,  what  shall  I  do  ?  I  ask  myself,  and  look  up.  Above 
there  is  also  an  abyss.  I  look  into  this  abyss  of  the 
heaven,  and  try  to  forget  the  abyss  below  me,  and  indeed 
I  am  successful.  The  infinity  below  repels  and  frightens 
me ;  the  infinity  above  me  attracts  and  confirms  me.  I 
am  still  hanging  over  the  pit  on  the  last  strips  which 
have  not  yet  slipped  out  from  under  me ;  I  know  that  I 


90  MY    CONFESSION 

am  hanging,  but  I  look  only  up,  and  my  terror  disappears. 
As  frequently  happens  in  a  dream,  a  voice  says  to  me : 

"  Observe  !     It  is  it ! " 

And  I  look  farther  and  farther  into  the  infinity  above 
me,  and  I  feel  that  I  am  calming  down  ;  I  remember 
everything  which  has  happened,  and  I  recall  how  it  has 
all  happened,  —  how  I  moved  my  legs,  how  I  hung  down, 
how  I  became  frightened,  and  how  I  saved  myself  from 
terror  by  looking  up.  And  I  ask  myself :  "  Well,  am  I 
now  still  hanging  in  the  same  way  ?  I  do  not  so  much 
look  around  as  feel  with  my  whole  body  the  point  of  sup- 
port on  which  1  am  suspended.  I  see  that  I  no  longer 
hang  or  fall,  but  am  firmly  held.  I  ask  myself  how  lam 
held ;  I  feel  around  and  look  about  me,  and  I  see  that 
beneath  me,  under  the  middle  of  my  body,  there  is  one 
strip,  and  that,  looking  up,  I  lie  on  it  in  the  most  stable 
equilibrium,  and  that  it  is  that  strip  alone  that  has  been 
holding  me  up  all  the  while. 

As  happens  in  a  dream,  I  now  see  the  mechanism  by 
means  of  which  I  am  held,  and  I  find  it  very  natural, 
comprehensible,  and  incontestable,  although  in  waking 
this  mechanism  has  no  meaning  whatever.  In  my  sleep 
I  even  wonder  how  it  was  that  I  could  not  understand  it 
before.  It  turns  out  that  at  my  head  there  is  a  pillar, 
and  the  stability  of  this  pillar  is  subject  to  no  doubt,  al- 
though this  slender  pillar  has  nothing  to  stand  on.  Then 
there  is  a  loop  which  is  ingeniously  and  yet  simply 
attached  to  the  pillar,  and  if  you  lie  with  the  middle  of 
your  body  in  this  loop  and  look  up,  there  cannot  even  be 
a  question  about  falling.  All  that  was  clear  to  me,  and 
I  was  happy  and  calm.  It  was  as  though  some  one  were 
saying  to  me  :  "  Eemember  !     Do  not  forget !  " 

And  I  awoke. 

1882. 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC 
THEOLOGY 


T881-1882 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC 
THEOLOGY 


PEEFACE 


1  WAS  inevitably  led  to  the  investigation  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  faith  of  the  Orthodox  Churcli.  In  the  communion 
with  the  Orthodox  Church  1  had  found  salvation  from 
despair.  I  was  firmly  convinced  that  in  this  doctrine  lay 
the  only  truth,  but  many,  very  many,  manifestations  of 
this  doctrine,  which  were  contrary  to  those  fundamental 
concepts  which  I  had  about  God  and  his  law,  compelled 
me  to  turn  to  the  study  of  the  doctrine  itself. 

I  did  not  then  assume  that  the  doctrine  was  false,  — 
I  was  afraid  of  supposing  that,  —  for  one  untruth  in  thfit 
doctrine  destroyed  the  whole  doctrine,  and  then  I  should 
lose  the  main  support  which  I  had  found  in  the  church 
as  the  carrier  of  truth,  as  the  source  of  that  knowledge  of 
the  meaning  of  hfe  which  I  was  trying  to  find  in  faith. 
So  1  began  to  study  the  books  which  expounded  the 
Orthodox  doctrine.  In  all  those  works  the  doctrine,  in 
spite  of  the  diversity  of  details  and  some  difference  in 
consecutiveness,  is  one  and  the  same  ;  so,  too,  the  connec- 
tion between  the  parts  and  the  fundamental  principle  is 
one  and  the  same, 

I  read  and  studied  those  books,,  and  here  is  the  feeling 

93 


94  CRITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

which  I  have  carried  away  from  that  study.  If  I  had 
not  been  led  by  life  to  the  inevitable  necessity  of  faith ; 
if  I  had  not  seen  that  this  faith  formed  the  foundation  of 
the  life  of  all  men  ;  if  this  feehng,  shattered  by  hfe,  had 
not  been  strengthened  anew  in  my  heart ;  if  the  founda- 
tion of  my  faith  had  been  only  confidence  ;  if  there  were 
within  me  only  the  faith  of  which  theology  speaks  (taught 
to  believe),  I,  after  reading  these  books,  not  only  would 
have  turned  an  atheist,  but  should  have  become  a  most 
malignant  enemy  of  every  faitb,  because  I  found  in  these 
doctrines  not  only  nonsense,  but  the  conscious  he  of  men 
who  had  chosen  the  faith  as  a  means  for  obtaining  certain 
ends. 

The  reading  of  these  books  has  cost  me  a  terrible 
labour,  not  so  much  on  account  of  the  effort  which  I  was 
making  in  order  to  understand  the  connection  between 
the  expressions,  the  one  which  the  people  who  wrote 
them  saw,  as  on  account  of  the  inner  struggle  which  I 
had  to  carry  on  all  the  time  with  myself,  m  order,  as 
I  read  these  books,  to  abstain  from  indignation. 

I  used  up  a  great  deal  of  paper,  analyzing  word  after 
word,  at  first  the  Symbol  of  Faith,  then  Filar^t's  Cate- 
chism, then  the  Epistle  of  the  Eastern  Patriarchs,  then 
Makari's  Introduction  to  Theology,  and  then  his  Dogmatic 
Theology.  A  serious,  scientific  tone,  such  as  these  books, 
particularly  the  new  ones,  hke  Makari's  Theology,  are 
written  in,  was  impossible  during  the  analysis  of  these 
books.  It  was  impossible  to  condemn  or  reject  the  ideas 
expressed,  because  it  was  impossible  to  catch  a  single 
clearly  expressed  idea.  The  moment  I  got  ready  to  take 
hold  of  an  idea,  in  order  to  pass  judgment  upon  it,  it 
slipped  away  from  me,  because  it  was  purposely  expressed 
obscurely,  and  I  involuntarily  returned  to  the  analysis  of 
the  expression  of  the  idea  itself,  —  when  it  appeared  that 
there  was  no  definite  idea  ;  the  words  had  not  the  meaning 
which  they  generally  have  in  language,  but  a  special  one, 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  95 

the  clefiiiition  of  which  was  not  tangible.  The  definition 
or  elucidation  of  a  thought,  if  there  was  any,  was  always 
in  a  reverse  sense ;  to  define  or  clear  up  a  difficult  word 
use  was  made  of  a  word  or  series  of  words  entirely  in- 
comprehensible. For  a  long  time  I  wavered  in  doubt, 
did  not  permit  myself  to  deny  what  I  did  not  understand, 
and  with  all  the  forces  of  mind  and  soul  tried  to  under- 
stand that  teaching  in  the  same  way  as  those  understood 
it  who  said  that  they  believed  in  it,  and  demanded  that 
others,  too,  should  beheve  in  it.  This  was  the  more  diffi- 
cult for  me,  the  more  detailed  and  quasi-scientific  the 
exposition  was. 

When  I  read  the  Symbol  of  Faith  in  church  Slavic,  in 
its  word-for-word  translation  from  the  obscure  Greek 
text,  I  managed  somehow  to  combine  my  conceptions  of 
faith,  but  when  I  read  the  Epistle  of  the  Eastern  Patri- 
archs, who  express  those  dogmas  more  in  detail,  I  was 
unable  to  combine  my  conceptions  of  faith,  and  was  al- 
most unable  to  make  out  what  was  meant  by  the  words 
which  I  read.  With  the  reading  of  the  Catechism  this 
disagreement  and  lack  of  comprehension  increased.  When 
I  read  the  Theology,  at  first  Damascene's  and  then  Ma- 
kari's,  ray  lack  of  comprehension  and  my  disagreement 
reached  its  farthest  limits.  But  at  last  I  began  to  under- 
stand the  external  connection  which  united  those  words, 
and  that  train  of  thoughts  which  had  guided  the  writer, 
and  the  reason  why  I  could  not  agree  with  them, 

I  worked  over  it  for  a  long  time  and  finally  reached  a 
point  when  I  knew  the  Theology  like  a  good  seminarist, 
and  I  am  able,  following  the  trend  of  the  thoughts  which 
have  guided  the  authors,  to  explain  the  foundation  of 
everything,  the  connection  between  the  separate  dog- 
mas, and  the  meaning  in  this  connection  of  every  dogma, 
and,  above  all,  I  am  able  to  explain  why  such  and  not 
another  connection,  strange  as  it  is,  was  chosen.  When 
I  attained  to  that,  I  was  shocked.     I  saw  that  all  that 


96  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

doctrine  was  an  artificial  code  (compo.sed  from  the  mere 
external,  most  inexact  terms)  of  the  expressions  of  the 
beliefs  of  a  great  variety  of  men,  discordant  among  them- 
selves and  mutually  contradictory.  I  saw  that  harmoni- 
zation was  of  no  use  to  anybody,  that  nobody  could  ever 
believe  all  that  doctrine,  and  never  did,  and  that,  there- 
fore, there  must  be  some  external  purpose  in  the  impossi- 
ble combination  of  these  various  doctrines  into  one  and 
in  promulgating  them  as  truth.  I  even  comprehended 
that  purpose.  I  also  understood  why  this  doctrine  was 
sure  to  produce  atheists  in  the  seminaries,  where  it  is 
taiight,  and  I  understood  the  strange  feeling  which  I  ex- 
perienced while  reading  those  books.  I  had  read  the  so- 
called  blasJDhemous  works  of  Voltaire  and  Hume,  but 
never  had  I  experienced  such  an  undoubted  conviction  of 
the  full  faithlessness  of  a  man  as  what  I  experienced 
in  reference  to  the  composers  of  the  Catechisms  and  the 
Theologies.  When  you  read  in  these  works  the  quota- 
tions from  the  apostles  and  the  so-called  fathers  of  the 
church,  of  which  the  Theology  is  composed,  you  see  that 
those  are  expressions  of  believing  men,  you  hear  the  voice 
of  their  heart,  in  spite  of  the  awkwardness,  crudity,  and 
at  times  falseness  of  their  expressions ;  but  when  you 
read  the  words  of  the  compiler,  it  becomes  clear  to  you 
that  the  compiler  did  not  care  at  all  for  the  siiicere  mean- 
ing of  the  expression  quoted  by  him,  —  he  does  not  even 
try  to  comprehend  it.  All  he  needs  is  a  casual  word,  in 
order  to  attach  by  means  of  it  an  idea  of  the  apostle  to  an 
expression  of  Moses  or  of  a  new  father  of  the  church. 
All  he  wants  is  to  form  such  a  code  as  will  make  it 
appear  that  everything  which  is  written  in  the  so-called 
Holy  Scriptures  and  in  the  fathers  of  the  church  was 
written  only  in  order  to  prove  the  Symbol  of  Faith. 
And  so  I  came  at  last  to  see  that  all  that  doctrine,  the 
one  in  which,  I  then  thought,  the  faith  of  the  masses  was 
expressed,  \yas  not  only  a  lie,  but  also  a  deception,  which 


The  MctrnpnUtan  Filarct. 


I 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    TUEOLOGY  97 

liad  taken  form  through  the  ages  and  had  a  definite,  base 
purpose. 

Here  is  that  doctrine.  I  expound  it  according  to  the 
Symbol  of  Faith,  the  Epistle  of  the  Eastern  Patriarchs, 
Filar^t's  Catechism,  and,  mainly,  Makari's  Dogmatic 
Theology,  a  book  which  the  church  regards  as  the 
best  dogmatic  theology. 


FIRST    PART    OF    THE    DOGMATIC 

THEOLOGY 


The  Introduction  consists  of  the  exposition  of  (1)  the 
aim,  (2)  the  subject,  (3)  the  origin  of  the  Orthodox  Chris- 
tian dogmas,  (4)  the  division  of  the  dogmas,  (5)  the  char- 
acter of  the  plan  and  method,  (6)  a  sketch  of  the  history 
of  the  science  of  dogmatic  theology. 

Though  the  Introduction  does  not  speak  of  the  subject, 
it  cannot  be  omitted,  because  it  defines  in  advance  what 
will  be  expounded  in  the  whole  book  and  how  it  will  be 
expounded. 

"  1.  The  Orthodox  dogmatic  theology,  taken  in  the 
sense  of  a  science,  has  to  expound  the  Christian  dogmas 
in  a  systematic  order  with  the  greatest  fulness,  clearness, 
and  thoroughness  possible,  and,  of  course,  only  in  the 
spirit  of  the  Orthodox  Church. 

"  2.  Under  the  name  of  Christian  dogmas  are  under- 
stood the  revealed  truths  which  are  transmitted  to  men 
by  the  church  as  incontestable  and  invariable  rules  of  the 
saving  faith." 

Farther  on  it  explains  that  revealed  truths  are  called 
the  truths  which  are  found  in  tradition  and  in  the  Scrip- 
tures. Tradition  and  the  Scriptures  are  recognized  as 
truths  because  the  church  recognizes  them  as  such,  and 
the  church  is  recognized  as  a  truth  because  it  recognizes 
these.  Tradition  and  the  Scriptures. 

"  3.     From  the  conception  given  about  the  Christian 

98 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  99 

dogmas  it  appears  that  they  have  all  a  divine  origin. 
Consequently,  no  one  has  the  right  either  to  multiply  or 
diminish  their  number,  or  to  change  and  transform  them 
in  any  manner  whatsoever :  as  many  as  were  revealed  by 
God  in  the  beginning,  so  many  nmst  there  remain  of 
them  for  all  time,  as  long  as  Christianity  shall  exist." 

Revealed  in  the  very  beginning.  It  does  not  say  what 
is  meant  by  "  revealed  in  the  very  beginning."  In  the 
beginning  of  the  world,  or  in  the  beginning  of  Christian- 
ity ?  In  eitlier  case,  when  was  that  beginning  ?  It  says 
that  the  dogmas  did  not  appear  one  after  another,  but  all 
at  once,  in  the  beginning,  but  when  that  beginning  was, 
it  does  not  say,  neither  here,  nor  anywhere  else  in  the 
whole  book.     It  goes  on  : 

"  But,  although  they  remain  invariable  in  their  revela- 
tion, both  as  to  their  number  and  their  essence,  the 
dogmas  of  the  church  have  none  the  less  to  be  dis- 
closed, and  are  disclosed,  in  the  church  to  the  believ- 
ers. Ever  since  men  have  begun  to  make  these  dogmas, 
which  were  handed  down  through  revelation,  their  own, 
and  to  draw  them  into  the  circle  of  their  ideas,  these 
sacred  truths  began  inevitably  to  be  modified  in  the 
concepts  of  various  entities  (the  same  happens  with 
any  truth  when  it  becomes  the  possession  of  man),  — 
inevitably  tliere  had  to  appear,  and  did  appear,  various 
opinions,  various  misconceptions  in  regard  to  the  dog- 
mas, even  various  mutilations  of  the  dogmas,  or  here- 
sies, intentional  and  unintentional.  In  order  to  guard 
the  believers  against  all  that,  to  show  them  what  and 
how  they  should  believe  on  the  basis  of  the  revela- 
tion, the  church  has  from  the  very  beginning  offered 
to  them,  by  tradition  from  the  holy  apostles  themselves, 
short  models  of  faith,  or  symbols." 

The  dogmas  are  invariable  in  number  and  essence,  and 
were  revealed  in  the  beginning,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
they  have  to  be  disclosed.      That   is    incomprehensible, 


100  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

and  still  more  incomprehensible  is  this,  that  before  it 
said  simply  "  iu  the  beginning,"  and  we  assumed,  with 
the  Theology,  that  it  was  from  the  beginning  of  every- 
thing ;  but  now  the  beginning  is  referred  to  the  beginning 
of  Christianity.  Besides,  these  words  give  us  the  very 
meaning  which  the  author  has  denied  in  the  beginning. 
There  it  said,  in  the  beginning  everything  was  revealed, 
and  here  it  says  that  the  dogmas  are  disclosed  by  the 
church,  and  toward  the  end  it  says  that  the  church  has 
from  the  very  beginning  (of  something)  offered^  not  the 
church  offered  from  the  beginning,  by  tradition  from  the 
holy  apostles,  short  models  of  faith,  or  symbols,  that  is, 
there  appears  an  internal  contradiction.  It  is  evident 
that  by  the  word  "  dogma ''  two  mutually  excluding 
ideas  are  understood.  According  to  the  definition  of  the 
Theology,  a  dogma  is  a  truth  as  taught  by  the  church. 
According  to  this  definition  dogmas  may  be  disclosed,  as 
the  author,  indeed,  says  they  are,  that  is,  they  may  ap- 
pear, be  modified,  become  more  complicated,  as  has  hap- 
pened in  reality.  But  the  author,  having  evidently  given 
an  inexact  definition  to  the  word  "  dogma,"  by  saying 
that  it  is  a  teaching  of  the  truth,  instead  of  saying  a 
teaching  of  that  which  is  regarded  as  the  truth,  or  even 
by  saying  simply  that  the  dogma  is  a  truth  of  faith,  has 
given  to  the  dogma  still  another  meaning  which  excludes 
the  first,  and  so  has  been  drawn  into  a  contradiction. 
But  the  author  needs  this  contradiction.  He  wants  to 
understand  by  dogma  the  truth  iu  itself,  the  absolute 
truth,  and  a  truth  as  expressed  by  certain  words.  This 
contradiction  is  necessary  in  order  that,  teaching  what 
the  church  regards  as  truth,  it  shall  be  possible  to  assert 
that  what  it  teaches  is  the  absolute  truth.  This  false 
reasoning  is  important  not  only  because  it  inevitably  leads 
to  contradiction  and  excludes  all  possibility  of  a  rational 
exposition,  but  also  because  it  involuntarily  rouses  sus- 
picion in  regard  to  the  consequent  exposition.    According 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY  101 

to  the  defiuitiou  of  the  church,  a  dogma  is  a  revealed 
divme  truth,  taught  by  the  church  for  the  sake  of  the 
saving  faith.  I  am  a  man  of  God.  In  revealing  this 
truth,  God  has  revealed  it  to  me,  too.  I  am  in  search  of 
the  saving  faith,  and  what  I  say  to  myself,  billions  of 
people  have  said.  Then,  teach  it  to  me !  The  truths  are 
revealed  by  God  (revealed  to  me  as  much  as  to  you),  so 
how  can  1  help  believing  these  truths  and  accepting 
them  ?  This  is  all  I  want,  and  they  are  divine.  So 
teach  them  to  me !  Don't  be  afraid  that  I  will  reject 
them.  But  the  church  seems  to  be  afraid  that  I  may 
reject  what  is  necessary  for  my  salvation  and  wants  to 
compel  me  in  advance  to  assert  that  all  the  dogmas  which 
it  may  teach  me  are  truths.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
what  God  has  revealed  to  men  who  are  in  search  of  him 
is  truth.  Give  me  these  truths !  But  here,  instead  of 
the  truths,  I  receive  a  bit  of  intentionally  incorrect  rea- 
soning, the  purpose  of  which  is  to  assure  me  in  advance 
that  everything  which  I  am  going  to  be  told  is  the  truth. 
Instead  of  vanquishing  me  in  favour  of  the  truth,  this 
reasoning  has  the  opposite  effect  upon  me.  It  is  evident 
to  me  that  the  reasoning  is  irregular,  and  that  they  want 
to  assure  themselves  in  advance  of  my  confidence  in  what 
they  are  going  to  tell  me.  But  how  do  I  know  that 
what  I  am  to  be  taught  as  a  truth  is  not  a  lie  ?  I  know 
that  in  the  Dogmatic  Theology,  and  in  the  Catechism, 
and  in  the  Epistle  of  the  Eastern  Patriarchs,  and  even  in 
the  Symbol  of  Faith  there  is,  among  the  number  of  dog- 
mas, one  about  the  holy,  infallible  church,  which  is 
guided  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  which  is  the  keeper  of 
the  dogmas.  If  the  dogmas  cannot  be  expounded  in  them- 
selves, but  only  by  leaning  on  the  dogma  of  the  church, 
they  ought  to  begin  with  the  dogma  of  the  church.  If 
everything  is  based  upon  it,  they  ought  to  say  so  and 
begin  with  it,  and  not  place,  beginning  with  the  1st  arti- 
cle, as  is  done  here,  the  dogma   of  the   church  at  the 


102      ■     CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

fouudatiou  of  everything,  without  mentioning  it  except 
in  passing,  as  something  well  known,  and  not  as  is  done 
in  Filar^t's  Catechism,  Chapter  III,,  where  it  says  that 
God's  revelation  is  preserved  in  the  church  by  means  of 
tradition.  The  church  is  composed  of  all  who  are  united 
by  faith  in  tradition,  and  it  is  they  who  are  united  by 
tradition  that  keep  the  tradition. 

Tradition  is  always  preserved  by  those  who  believe  in 
the  tradition.  That  is  always  so.  But  is  it  right,  —  is 
it  not  a  lie  ?  And  that  care  with  which,  without  saying 
anything  about  the  dogmas,  they  want  to  catch  in  ad- 
vance my  agreement  to  every  dogma,  compels  me  to  be 
on  guard.  I  do  not  say  that  I  do  not  believe  in  the  holi- 
ness and  infallibility  of  the  church.  At  the  time  when 
I  began  this  investigation  I  fully  beheved  in  it,  in  it 
alone  (it  seemed  to  me  that  I  believed).  But  it  is  neces- 
sary to  know  what  is  to  be  understood  by  the  church  and 
in  any  case,  if  everything  is  to  be  based  on  the  dogma  of 
the  church,  to  begin  with  it,  as  Ivhomyakdv  has  done. 
But  if  they  do  not  begin  with  the  dogma  of  the  church, 
but  with  the  dogma  of  God,  as  is  the  case  in  the  Symbol 
of  Faith,  in  the  Epistle  of  the  Eastern  Patriarchs,  in  the 
Catechism,  and  in  all  Dogmatic  Theologies,  they  ought  to 
expound  the  most  essential  dogmas,  the  truths  revealed 
by  God  to  men. 

I  am  a  man,  —  God  has  me,  too,  in  view.  I  am 
searching  after  salvation,  how  then  could  I  refuse  to  re- 
ceive that  one  thing  which  I  am  searching  after  with  all 
the  powers  of  my  soul !  I  cannot  help  accepting  it,  I 
certainly  will  accept  it.  If  my  union  with  the  church 
will  strengthen  it,  so  much  the  better.  Tell  me  the 
truths  as  you  know  them  !  Tell  them  to  me  at  least  as 
they  are  told  in  the  Symbol  of  Eaith  which  we  have  all 
learned  by  heart !  If  you  are  afraid  that  in  the  dinmess 
and  feebleness  of  luy  mind,  in  the  corruption'of  my  heart, 
I  shall  not  understand  them,  help  me  (you  know  these 


CRITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  103 

divine  truths, —  you,  the  church,  are  teaching  us),  help 
my  feeble  understanding,  but  do  not  forget  that,  no  mat- 
ter what  you  may  say,  you  will  be  talking  to  the  under- 
standing. You  will  be  speaking  the  divine  truths  as 
expressed  in  words,  but  the  words  must  again  be  compre- 
hended only  through  reason.  Elucidate  these  truths  to 
my  understanding  ;  show  me  the  futility  of  my  objec- 
tions ;  soften  my  obdurate  heart  with  the  irresistible  sym- 
pathy and  striving  after  the  good  and  the  true,  which  I 
shall  find  in  you ;  and  do  not  catch  me  with  words,  with 
an  intentional  deception,  which  impairs  the  sacredness  of 
the  subject  of  which  you  speak,  I  am  touched  by  the 
prayer  of  the  three  hermits,  of  which  the  popular  legend 
speaks  ;  they  prayed  to  God  :  "  There  are  three  of  you,  three 
of  us,  have  mercy  on  us  !  "  I  know  that  their  conception 
of  God  is  wrong,  but  I  am  attracted  to  them  and  want  to 
imitate  them,  just  as  one  feels  like  laughing,  looking  at  those 
who  laugh,  and  like  yawning,  looking  at  those  who  yawn, 
because  I  feel  with  all  my  heart  that  they  are  searching  after 
God  and  do  not  see  the  falseness  of  their  expression ;  but 
sophisms,  intentional  deception,  in  order  to  catch  in  their 
trap  those  who  are  not  cautious  or  firm  in  reason,  repels  me. 

Indeed,  what  is  before  us  is  the  exposition  of  revealed 
truths  about  God,  about  man,  about  salvation.  The  men 
know  that  and,  instead  of  expounding  what  they  know, 
they  make  a  series  of  false  deductions,  by  which  they 
want  to  convince  us  that  everything  which  they  are  going 
to  say  about  God,  about  man,  about  salvation,  will  be  ex- 
pressed in  such  a  way  that  it  cannot  be  expressed  in  any 
other  way,  and  that  it  is  impossible  not  to  believe  every- 
thing they  are  going  to  tell  me. 

Maybe  you  are  going  to  expound  to  me  a  revealed 
truth,  but  the  method  which  you  use  in  making  the  ex- 
position is  the  same  that  is  applied  in  the  exposition  of  an 
intentional  lie.  Let  us  zealously  look  at  the  truths  them- 
selves, —  what  they  consist  in,  and  how  they  are  expressed. 


n. 

In  the  Symbol  of  Faith,  in  the  Epistle  of  the  Eastern 
Patriarchs,  in  Filar^t's  Catechism,  in  the  Dogmatic  The- 
ology, the  first  dogma  is  the  dogma  about  God.  The 
general  title  of  the  first  part  is  :  "  Of  God  in  himself,  and  of 
his  general  relation  to  the  world  and  to  man  {OeoXoyia  d.7rXrj, 
that  is,  simple  theology)."  That  is  the  title  of  the  first 
part.  The  second  part  will  be  :  "  About  God  the  Saviour 
and  about  his  special  relation  to  the  human  race  (^eoAoyt'a 
olKovofjLLKyj,  theology  of  house-management)." 

If  I  know  anything  about  God,  if  I  have  had  any  con- 
ception about  him,  these  two  titles  of  the  two  parts 
destroy  all  my  knowledge  of  God.  I  cannot  connect  my 
conception  about  God  with  a  conception  about  a  God  for 
whom  there  exist  two  different  relations  to  man,  —  one, 
general,  —  the  other,  special.  The  concept  "  special  " 
attached  to  God  destroys  my  conception  about  God,  If 
God  is  the  God  whom  I  have  comprehended,  he  can  have 
no  special  relation  to  man.  But,  perhaps,  I  do  not  under- 
stand the  words  right,  or  my  conceptions  are  incorrect. 
Farther  on  I  read  about  God :  "  Division  I.  Of  God  in 
himself."  Now  I  am  waiting  for  the  expression  of  the 
truth  about  God,  revealed  by  God  to  men  for  their  salva- 
tion and  known  to  the  church.  But,  before  getting  an 
exposition  of  this  revealed  truth,  I  meet  with  Art.  9, 
which  speaks  of  the  degree  of  our  cognition  of  God  ac- 
cording to  the  doctrine  of  the  church.  This  article,  hke 
the  Introduction,  does  not  speak  of  the  subject  itself,  but 
in  the  same  way  prepares  me  to  understand  what  is  going 
to  be  expounded : 

104 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  105 

"  The  Orthodox  Church  begins  all  its  doctrine  about 
God  in  the  Symbol  of  Faith  with  the  words,  '  I  believe,' 
and  the  first  dogma  whicli  it  wishes  to  impart  consists  in 
the  following  :  God  is  mcomprehensible  to  the  human 
intellect ;  men  can  know  him  only  in  part,  —  as  much  as 
he  has  been  pleased  to  reveal  himself  for  their  faith  and 
piety.     An  irrefutable  truth."     (p.  66.) 

To  those  who  are  not  used  to  this  kind  of  an  exposition 
I  must  explain  (for  I  myself  did  not  comprehend  it  for  a 
long  time)  that  by  irrefutable  truth  is  to  be  understood, 
not  that  God  is  incomprehensible,  but  that  he  is  compre- 
hensible, but  comprehensible  only  in  part.  In  that  does 
the  truth  lie.     This  truth,  it  goes  on  to  say : 

"  Is  clearly  expounded  in  Holy  Scripture  and  is  dis- 
closed in  detail  in  the  writings  of  the  holy  fathers  and 
teachers  of  the  church,  on  the  basis  even  of  common 
sense.  The  Holy  Books  preach  on  the  one  hand  that  {a) 
God  dwelleth  in  the  light  which  no  man  can  approach 
unto ;  whom  no  man  hath  seen  nor  can  see  (3  Tim.  vi.  16); 
that  (h)  not  only  for  men,  but  also  for  all  his  creatures  his 
being  is  unknown,  his  judgments  unsearchable,  and  his 
ways  past  finding  out  (Eom.  xi.  33-34;  John  i.  18; 
1  John  iv,  12  ;  Sirach  xvii.  3-4),  and  that  (c)  God  alone 
knows  God :  for  what  man  knoweth  the  things  of  a  man, 
save  the  spirit  of  man  which  is  in  him  ?  even  so  the 
things  of  God  knoweth  no  man,  but  the  spirit  of  God 
(1  Cor.  ii.  11),  and  no  man  knoweth  the  Son,  but  the 
Father,  neither  knoweth  any  man  the  Father,  save  the 
Sou  (Matt.  xi.  27)."     (p.  67.) 

On  the  other  hand  the  Holy  Books  announce  to  us  that 
the  Invisible  and  Incomprehensible  One  was  pleased  to 
appear  to  men,  and  that  God  is  inaccessible  to  reason,  but 
that  his  existence  is  comprehensible.     Here  are  the  truths  : 

"  (ft)  For  the  invisible  things  of  him  from  the  creation 
of  the  world  are  clearly  seen,  being  understood  by  the 
things  that  are  made,  even  his  eternal  power  and  God- 


106  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

head  (Eom.  i.  20 ;  Psalm  xix.  1-4 ;  Wis.  of  Sol.  xiii. 
1-5),  and  still  more  (h),  in  the  supernatural  revelation, 
when  he  at  sundry  times  and  in  divers  manners  spake  in 
time  past  unto  the  fathers  by  the  prophets,  hath  in  these 
last  days  spoken  unto  us  by  his  Son  (Heb.  i.  1-2 ;  Wis.  of 
Sol  ix.  16-19),  and  when  this  only-begotten  Son  of  God, 
appearing  on  earth  in  the  flesh  (1.  Tim.  iii.  16),  gave  us 
light  and  understanding  that  we  might  know  the  true 
God  (1  John  v.  20),  and  then  preached  his  teaching 
through  the  apostles,  having  sent  down  upon  them  the 
spirit  of  truth,  which  searcheth  all  things,  yea,  the  deep 
things  of  God  (John  xiv.  16-18,  1  Cor.  ii.  10).  Finally 
the  Holy  Books  assert  that  although  thus  the  Son  of  God, 
being  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  hath  declared  to  us 
God,  no  man  hath  seen  him  (John  i.   18)."     (p.  68.) 

I  beg  the  reader  to  observe  the  inexactness  of  the  text. 
The  actual  text  (John  i.  18)  runs  like  this :  No  man  hath 
seen  God  at  any  time ;  the  only -begotten  Son,  which  is  in 
the  bosom  of  the  Father,  he  hath  declared  him,  but  no- 
where does  it  say,  "  being  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father  hath 
declared  to  us  God."  *■ 

"  For  now  w^e  see  the  Invisible  One  as  wath  a  glass  in 
divining,  and  now  we  know  the  Incomprehensible  One 
only  in  part  (1  Cor.  xiii.  12)." 

I  beg  the  reader  to  observe  the  incorrectness  of  this 
text,  too.  In  the  text  cited  it  does  not  say :  "  Now  we 
know  the  Incomprehensible  One  only  in  part."  It  does 
not  say  "  in  part,"  nor  is  there  a  word  said  about  the  "  In- 
comprehensible One,"  and  even  nothing  is  said  about 
knowing  God,  but  about  love  and  human  knowledge  in 
general.  Look  at  the  whole  chapter !  All  this  chapter 
speaks  only  of  human  knowledge,  which  is  imperfect,  and, 
evidently,  there  is  no  purpose  even  there  of  speaking  about 
the  knowledge  of  God. 

"  Now  we  walk  by  faith,  not  by  sight  (2  Cor.  v.  7)." 
(p.  68.) 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  107 

For  we  walk  by  faith,  not  by  sight,  that  is,  we  live. 
Here  again  nothing  is  said  about  the  knowledge  of  God  in 
part,  but  about  living  by  faith.  All  these  texts  are  ad- 
duced in  order  to  prove  that  God  is  incomprehensible  and 
comprehensible  only  in  part.  Again  we  Hud  here  an  in- 
tentional mixing  up  of  ideas.  The  author  purposely 
mixes  up  two  ideas  :  the  comprehensibility  of  the  exist- 
ence of  God  and  the  comprehensibility  of  God  himself. 
When  we  speak  of  the  beginning  of  everything,  of  God,* 
we  evidently  recognize  and  comprehend  his  existence. 
But  when  we  speak  of  God's  essence,  we  obviously  can- 
not comprehend  that.  Why  then  prove  that  he  is 
comprehensible  in  part  ?  If  nothing  in  the  world  is 
completely  comprehensible  to  us,  then  it  is  evident  that 
God,  the  beginning  of  all  beginnings,  is  absolutely  incom- 
prehensible. Why  prove  it?  and  why  prove  it  in  such  a 
strange  manner,  by  adducing  incorrect  -words  from  John, 
which  prove  that  no  man  has  ever  seen  God,  and  inexact 
words  from  Paul,  which  refer  to  something  quite  different, 
to  the  proof  of  the  comprehensibility  of  God  in  part  ? 

These  strange  texts  and  the  strange  i)roofs  arise  from 
this,  that  the  word  "  comprehensibility  "  is  used  here  and 
elsewhere  in  a  double  sense  :  in  its  natural  sense  of  under- 
standing and  in  the  sense  of  knowledge  taken  on  trust. 
If  the  author  had  understood  comprehensibility  as  com- 
prehensibility, he  would  not  have  tried  to  prove  that  we 
comprehend  God  in  part,  but  would  have  admitted  at 
once  that  we  cannot  comprehend  him  ;  but  he  understands 
here  by  the  word  "  comprehensibility  "  knowledge  taken 
on  faith,  purposely  mixing  up  this  conception  with  the 
conception  of  the  recognition  of  the  existence  of  God. 
And  so  it  turns  out  with  him  that  we  can  comprehend 
God  in  part.  When  he  adduces  the  text  about  our 
comprehending  God  through  his  creations,  he  has  in 
mind  the  recognition  of  God's  existence ;  but  when  he 
quotes  the  text  that  "  God  spoke  to  the  fathers  through 


108  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

the  prophets "  and  then  "  through  the  Son,"  he  has  in 
mind  the  knowledge  which  is  taken  on  faith,  as  we  shall 
see  later  on.  For  the  same  reason  he  quotes  Paul's  text, 
that  "  we  walk  by  faith,"  as  a  proof  of  compreliensibility, 
by  which  he  means  the  knowledge  taken  on  faith.  By 
comprehensibility  the  author  does  not  understand  a  more 
or  less  firm  conviction  of  the  existence  of  God,  but  a 
greater  or  lesser  quantity  of  knowledge  about  God,  though 
entirely  incomprehensible,  taken  on  faith.  Farther  on 
he  says : 

"  The  holy  fathers  and  the  teachers  of  the  church 
have  disclosed  this  truth  in  detail,  especially  in  reference 
to  the  heretical  opinions  which  have  arisen  in  regard  to  it." 

The  heretical  opinions  consist,  in  the  author's  opinion, 
in  this,  that  God  is  entirely  comprehensible  and  absolutely 
incomprehensible ;  but  the  truth,  in  the  author's  opinion, 
consists  in  this,  that  God  is  incomprehensible,  and  at  the 
same  time  comprehensible  in  part.  Although  the  word 
"  in  part "  is  not  at  all  used  in  what  the  author  is  talking 
about,  and  has  not  even  external  authority  ;  although  the 
word,  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  used  here,  is  not  even 
used  in  Holy  Scripture,  the  author  insists  that  God  is 
comprehensible  in  part,  meaning  by  it  that  he  is  known 
in  part.  How  can  something  comprehensible  be  known 
fully  or  in  part  ?  There  is  an  exposition  of  two  opinions 
of  what  is  supposed  to  be  extreme  heresy :  of  those  who 
maintained  that  God  was  absolutely  comprehensible,  and 
of  others  who  maintained  that  God  was  absolutely  incom- 
prehensible, and  both  opinions  are  rejected  and  an  argument 
is  adduced  in  favour  of  comprehensibility  and  incom- 
prehensibihty.  In  reality,  it  is  clear  that  neither  opinion, 
about  the  absolute  comprehensibility  and  the  absolute 
incomprehensibility,  has  ever  been  expressed,  or  ever  could 
be  expressed.  In  all  these  seeming  arguments  pro  and 
con  we  find  this  expressed,  that  God,  by  the  very  fact 
that  he  is  mentioned,  that  he  is  thought  and  spoken  of, 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    TUEOLOGY  109 

is  recognized  as  existing.  But,  at  the  same  time,  since 
the  conception  of  God  cannot  be  anything  but  a  concep- 
tion of  the  beginning  of  everything  conceived  by  reason, 
it  is  evident  that  God,  as  the  beginning  of  everything, 
cannot  be  comprehended  by  reason.  Only  by  following 
along  the  path  of  rational  thinking  can  God  be  found 
at  the  extreme  limit  of  reason,  but  the  moment  this 
conception  is  reached,  reason  ceases  to  comprehend.  It 
is  this  that  is  expressed  in  all  the  passages  which  are 
quoted  fi-om  Holy  Scripture  and  from  the  holy  fathers, 
seemingly  for  and  against  the  comprehensibility  of  God. 

From  the  profound,  sincere  statements  of  the  apostles 
and  the  fathers  of  the  church,  which  prove  only  the 
incomprehensibility  of  God,  is  deduced,  in  a  mere  external 
manner,  the  comprehensibility  of  God.  It  is  the  dialectic 
problem  of  the  Theology  to  prove  that  God  cannot  be 
comprehended  altogether,  but  that  he  can  be  comprehended 
"  in  part."  Not  only  is  the  reasoning  purposely  twisted, 
but  in  these  pages  I  for  the  first  time  came  across  a  direct 
mutilation,  not  only  of  the  meaning,  but  also  of  the  words 
of  Holy  Scripture.  The  real  text  of  John  i.  18 :  "No 
man  hath  seen  God  at  any  time ;  the  only  begotten  Sou, 
which  is  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  he  hath  declared 
him,"  is  rendered  by  different  words.  From  the  famous 
13th  chapter  of  1  Corinthians,  which  treats  on  love,  one 
verse  is  quoted  in  a  mutilated  form  in  order  to  prove  the 
thesis. 

Then  follow  quotations  from  the  holy  fathers :  "  The 
Divinity  will  be  limited  if  it  is  comprehended  by  reason, 
for  conception  is  a  form  of  limitation,"  says  one  of  those 
whom  the  Theology  counts  among  the  advocates  of  incom- 
prehensibility. 

"  What  I  call  incomprehensible  is  not  that  God  exists, 
but  what  he  is.  Do  not  use  our  sincerity  as  a  cause  for 
atheism,"  says  Gregory  the  Divine,  whom  the  Theology 
counts  among  the  advocates  of  comprehensibility. 


110  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

From  all  this  the  author  concludes  that  God  can  be 
comprehended  "  in  part,"  meaning  by  the  word  "  com- 
prehend "  to  receive  the  knowledge  of  him  on  faith,  and 
proceeds  to  the  exposition  of  the  dogmas  which  will  be  a 
revelation  of  how  God  is  to  be  comprehended  in  part. 
Like  the  Introduction,  this  Art.  9  does  not  expound  the 
subject  at  all,  but  prepares  us  for  the  exposition  of  what 
follows.  The  purpose  of  this  article  consists  apparently 
in  preparing  the  reader  to  renounce  his  conception  of  God 
as  God,  as  incomprehensible  by  his  essence  of  the  begin- 
ning of  everything,  and  in  preventing  his  daring  to  deny 
that  information  about  God  which  will  be  imparted  to  him 
as  truths  based  on  tradition.  This  article  concludes  with 
a  quotation  from  St.  John  Damascene,  which  expresses 
the  idea  of  the  whole : 

"  The  Deity  is  unspeakable  and  incomprehensible,  for 
no  man  knoweth  the  Father,  but  the  Son,  and  no  man 
knoweth  the  Son,  but  the  Father  (Matt.  xi.  27).  Even  so 
the  Spirit  of  God  knoweth  the  things  of  God,  just  as  the 
spirit  of  man  knoweth  the  things  of  a  man  (1  Cor.  ii.  11). 
Outside  of  the  first  blessed  being  no  one  has  known  God, 
unless  God  has  revealed  himself  to  him, —  no  one,  not 
only  of  men,  but  even  of  the  primordial  forces,  of  the 
Cherubim  and  the  Seraphim.  However,  God  has  not  left 
us  in  complete  ignorance  of  himself,  for  the  knowledge 
of  God's  existence  God  himself  has  implanted  in  the  nature 
of  each.  And  creation  itself,  its  keeping  and  management, 
proclaim  the  Deity  (Wis.  of  Sol.  xiii.  5).  Besides,  at  first 
through  the  law  and  the  prophets,  then  through  his 
only-begotten  Son,  our  Lord  and  God  and  Saviour  Jesus 
Christ,  God  has  communicated  to  us  the  knowledge  of 
himself,  in  so  far  as  we  are  able  to  comprehend  him." 
(p.  73.) 

In  this  conclusion,  which  expresses  the  idea  of  the  whole, 
the  internal  contradiction  is  very  startling.  In  the  first  part 
it  says  that  nobody  can  comprehend  God,  nobody  knows 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  ill 

his  ways  and  purposes,  and  here,  in  the  second  part,  it 
says  :  "  Still,  God  has  not  left  us  in  ignorance,  but  through 
the  prophets,  his  Sou,  and  the  apostles  has  let  us  know 
about  himself,  in  so  far  as  we  are  able  to  comprehend 
him."  But  we  have  just  said  that  we  cannot  comprehend 
God,  and  here  we  suddenly  assert  that  we  know  that  he 
did  not  wish  to  leave  us  in  ignorance,  that  we  know  the 
means  which  he  has  used  for  the  purpose  of  attaining  his 
end,  that  we  know  the  real  prophets  and  the  real  Son  and 
the  real  apostles,  whom  he  has  sent  to  instruct  us.  It 
turns  out  that  after  we  have  recognized  his  incompre- 
hensibility, we  have  suddenly  discovered  all  the  details 
of  his  purposes,  his  means.  We  judge  of  him  as  of  a 
master  who  wants  to  inform  his  labourers  of  something. 
One  or  the  other  :  either  he  is  incomprehensible,  and  then 
we  cannot  know  his  purposes  and  actions,  or  he  is  entirely 
comprehensible,  if  we  know  his  prophets  and  know  that 
these  prophets  are  not  false,  but  real.     And  so  it  turns  out : 

"For  this  reason  everything  transmitted  to  us  by  the 
law,  the  prophets,  the  apostles,  and  the  evangehsts  we 
accept,  acknowledge,  and  respect,  and  we  search  after 
nothing  else.  Thus  God,  being  omniscient  and  solicitous 
of  the  advantage  of  all  men,  has  revealed  everything  which 
is  useful  for  us  to  know,  and  has  kept  from  us  what  we 
cannot  grasp.  Let  us  be  satisfied  with  this  and  hold  on 
to  it,  without  removing  the  eternal  landmarks  or  trans- 
gressing the  divine  Tradition  (Pro v.  xxii.  28)."     (p.  74.) 

If  so,  we  involuntarily  ask  ourselves :  Why  were  these 
prophets  and  apostles  true,  and  not  those  who  are  regarded 
as  false  ?  It  turns  out  that  God  is  incomprehensible  and 
we  are  absolutely  unable  to  know  him,  but  that  he  has 
transmitted  the  knowledge  of  himself  to  men,  not  to  all 
men,  but  to  the  prophets  and  the  apostles,  and  this  knowl- 
edge is  kept  in  holy  Tradition,  and  this  alone  we  are  to 
believe,  because  it  alone,  the  church,  is  true,  that  is,  those 
who  believe  in  the  Tradition,  who  observe  the  Tradition. 


112  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

In  the  Introduction  we  had  the  same.  After  long  dis- 
cussions about  what  a  dogma  was,  the  whole  business  was 
brought  down  to  this,  that  a  dogma  was  a  truth,  because 
it  was  taught  by  the  church,  and  the  church  w^ere  the 
men  who  were  united  by  the  faith  in  these  dogmas. 

We  have  the  same  thing  here :  God  may  be  compre- 
hended in  part,  a  Httle  bit,  and  how  to  know  him  "  a  little 
bit "  the  church  alone  knows,  and  everything  which  it  will 
tell  will  be  a  sacred  truth. 

In  the  question  of  the  dogma  we  had  a  double  defini- 
tion of  the  dogma,  as  an  absolute  truth  and  as  a  teaching, 
and  so  the  contradiction  consisted  in  this,  that  the  dogma 
was  now  one  unchangeable  truth,  revealed  from  the  very 
beginning,  and  now  a  teaching  of  the  church,  which  was 
evolved  by  degrees. 

Here,  in  the  question  of  comprehensibility,  by  which  is 
understood  knowledge  on  trust,  as  taught  by  the  church, 
the  author  contradicts  himself.  To  the  word  "  compre- 
hensibility "  a  double  meaning  is  ascribed :  the  meaning 
of  comprehensibility  and  of  knowledge  taken  on  trust. 
Neither  St.  John  Damascene,  nor  Filar^t,  nor  Makari  can 
help  seeing  that  for  the  greater  comprehensibihty  we 
must  have  a  greater  clearness,  and  the  affirmation  that 
what  I  am  told,  I  am  told  through  people  who  by  the 
church  are  called  prophets,  in  no  way  can  add  any  com- 
prehensibihty to  the  mind,  and  that  we  can  only  compre- 
hend '•'  in  part "  what  is  comprehensible,  and  so  they 
substitute  for  the  concept  of  comprehensibihty  the  con- 
cept of  knowledge,  and  then  they  say  that  this  knowledge 
has  been  transmitted  by  the  prophets,  and  the  question 
of  comprehensibility  is  entirely  set  aside ;  thus,  if  the 
knowledge  transmitted  through  the  prophets  makes  God 
more  incomprehensible  than  he  has  been  -to  me  before, 
this  knowledge  is  still  true.  But,  in  addition  to  this 
double  definition,  we  have  here  also  a  contradiction  be- 
tween   the    expressions  of    the    church    Tradition    itself. 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  113 

Texts  are  quoted,  and  of  these  some  deny  the  compre- 
hensibility  of  God,  and  the  others  recognize  it.  It  was 
necessary  either  to  reject  one  or  the  other,  or  to  harmonize 
them.  Theology  does  neither  the  one,  nor  the  other,  nor 
the  third,  but  simply  enunciates  that  everything  which  is 
to  follow  on  the  attributes  of  the  divisions  of  God  accord- 
ing to  liis  essence  and  his  persons  is  the  truth,  because 
thus  teaches  the  infallible  church,  that  is,  the  Tradition. 
Thus,  as  in  the  first  case,  in  discussing  the  Introduction, 
all  the  reasoning  appears  unnecessary,  and  all  is  brought 
down  to  this,  that  whatever  is  going  to  be  expounded  is 
the  truth,  because  the  church  teaches  it ;  even  thus  all 
the  reasoning  is  unnecessary  now,  because  the  foundation 
of  the  whole  doctrine  is  the  infallible  church. 

But  here,  in  addition  to  this  repeated  method,  for  the 
first  time  appears  the  teaching  of  the  church  itself,  the 
code  of  that  doctrine,  and  in  it  we  find  an  absence  of 
unity,  —  it  contradicts  itself. 

In  the  Introduction,  the  foundation  of  everything  was 
assumed  to  be  the  church,  that  is,  the  tradition  of  the 
men  who  were  united  through  the  tradition,  but  there  I 
did  not  yet  know  how  this  tradition  was  expressed.  Here 
appears  the  Tradition  itself,  that  is,  extracts  from  Holy 
Scripture,  and  these  extracts-  contradict  each  other  and 
are  connected  by  nothing  but  words. 

As  I  said  in  the  beginning,  I  believed  that  the  church 
was  the  carrier  of  truth.  After  having  worked  through 
the  seventy-three  pages  of  the  Introduction  and  the  exposi- 
tion of  how  the  church  teaches  about  the  dogmas  and  the 
incomprehensibility  of  God,  I,  to  my  sorrow,  convinced 
myself  that  the  exposition  of  the  subject  was  inexact,  and 
that  into  the  exposition  were  accidentally  or  intentionally 
introduced  irregular  discussions  about  (1)  the  dogma  being 
an  absolute  truth  and  at  the  same  time  the  instruction  in 
that  which  the  church  regards  as  truth,  (2)  that  the  an- 
nouncement through  the  prophets,  the  apostles,  and  Jesus 


114  CEITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

Christ  of  what  God  is  is  the  same  as  the  comprehensibility 
of  God.  In  the  discussions  of  either  point  there  is  not 
only  obscurity,  but  even  unscrupulousness.  No  matter 
what  subject  I  may  wish  to  expound,  no  matter  how  con- 
vinced I  may  be  of  my  incontestable  knowledge  of  the 
whole  truth  in  expounding  the  subject,  I  cannot  act  other- 
wise than  say, "  I  am  going  to  expound  this  and  that,  and 
this  I  consider  the  truth,  and  for  this  reason,"  but  I  will 
not  say  that  everything  which  I  am  going  to  say  is  an 
incontestable  truth.  And  no  matter  what  subject  I  may 
be  expounding,  I  cannot  do  otherwise  than  say,  "  The  sub- 
ject which  I  am  going  to  expound  is  not  fully  compre- 
hensible." My  whole  exposition  will  consist  in  making 
it  more  comprehensible,  and  the  greater  comprehensibility 
of  the  subject  will  be  a  sign  of  the  correctness  of  my 
exposition.  But  if  I  say,  "  The  subject  which  I  am  going 
to  expound  is  comprehensible  only  in  part  and  its  compre- 
hensibility is  given  to  me  by  a  certain  tradition,  and  every- 
thing which  this  tradition  says,  even  when  it  makes  the 
subject  more  incomprehensible  still,  and  only  what  this 
tradition  says,  is  the  truth,"  then  it  is  evident  that  nobody 
will  beheve  me. 

But  maybe  the  method  of  this  Introduction  was  irregu- 
lar, and  the  exposition  of  the  revealed  truths  may  still  be 
regular.     We  shall  Listen  to  this  revelation. 


III. 

"10.  The  essence  of  everything  which  it  has  pleased 
God  to  reveal  to  us  about  himself,  outside  his  relation  to 
other  creatures,  the  Orthodox  Church  expresses  in  brief 
in  the  following  words  of  Athanasius's  Symbol :  '  This  is 
the  Catholic  creed :  let  us  worship  the  one  God  in  the 
Trinity,  and  the  Trinity  in  the  One,  neither  blending  the 
hypostases,  nor  separating  the  substance.' "     (p.  74.) 

The  fundamental  truth  which  it  has  pleased  God  to 
reveal  about  himself  to  the  church  through  the  prophets 
and  the  apostles,  and  which  the  church  reveals  to  us,  is 
that  God  is  one  and  three,  three  and  one.  The  expression 
of  this  truth  is  such  that  I  not  merely  cannot  understand 
it,  but  indubitably  understand  that  it  cannot  be  under- 
stood. Man  understands  through  reason.  In  the  human 
mind  there  are  no  laws  more  definite  than  those  which 
refer  to  numbers.  And  so  the  first  thing  which  it  has 
pleased  God  to  reveal  about  himself  to  men  is  expressed  in 
numbers  :  I  myself  =  3,  and  3  =  1,  and  1  =  3. 

It  is  impossible  that  God  should  so  answer  the  people 
whom  he  has  himself  created  and  to  whom  he  has  given 
reason  in  order  to  understand  him ;  it  is  impossible  for 
him  to  answer  thus.  A  decent  man,  speaking  to  another, 
is  not  going  to  use  to  him  strange,  incomprehensible 
words.  Where  is  there  a  man,  however  feeble  in  intellect, 
who  to  a  child's  question  would  not  be  able  to  reply  in 
such  a  way  that  the  child  might  understand  him  ?  How 
then  will  God,  revealing  himself  to  me,  speak  in  such  a 
way  that  I  cannot  understand  him  ?    Have  not  I,  without 

115 


116  CRITIQUE   OF   DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

having  any  faith,  given  myself  an  explanation  of  life,  just 
as  every  unbeliever  has  such  an  explanation  ?  No  matter 
how  poor  such  an  explanation  may  be,  every  explanation 
is  at  least  an  explanation.  But  this  is  not  an  explana- 
tion :  it  is  merely  a  connection  of  words  without  any 
meaning  and  giving  no  idea  of  anytbing.  I  tried  to  find 
the  meaning  of  hfe  through  rational  knowledge,  and  found 
that  life  had  no  meaning.  Then  it  seemed  to  me  that 
faith  gave  that  meaning  and  so  I  turned  to  the  keeper  of 
faith,  to  the  church.  And  here,  with  its  very  first  state- 
ment, the  church  affirms  that  there  is  no  sense  in  the  very 
concept  of  God.  But,  maybe,  it  only  seems  to  me  that  it 
is  senseless,  because  I  do  not  understand  the  whole  signifi- 
cance of  it.  Ceiiainly  that  is  not  the  invention  of  one 
person ;  it  is  that  which  biUions  have  believed  in.  One 
and  trine  :  what  does  that  mean  ?     1  read  farther : 

"  Chapter  I.  Of  God,  one  in  substance."  (p.  74.)  It 
is  necessary,  in  the  first  place,  to  show  that  God  is  one  in 
substance,  and,  in  the  second  place,  to  disclose  the  idea 
of  the  very  substance  of  God.  Then  there  follows  the 
doctrine  about  the  unity  of  God  in  fourteen  pages,  divided 
into  articles.  ("  The  Doctrine  of  the  Church,  and  a  Short 
History  of  the  Dogma  about  the  Unity  of  God.") 

There  are  proofs  of  the  unity  of  God  from  Holy  Scrip- 
ture and  from  reason.  The  moral  application  of  the 
dogma.  An  exposition  of  the  proofs  and  explanations  of 
the  unity  of  God. 

God  is  for  me  and  for  every  believer,  above  all,  the 
beginning  of  all  beginnings,  the  cause  of  all  causes,  a 
being  out  of  time  and  space,  the  extreme  limit  of  reason. 
No  matter  how  I  may  express  this  idea,  I  cannot  say 
that  God  is  one,  for  to  that  concept  I  cannot  apply  the 
conception  of  number,  which  results  from  time  and  space, 
and  so  I  can  say  just  as  little  that  there  are  seventeen 
Gods,  as  that  there  is  one.  God  is  the  beginning  of 
everything,  God    is   God.     That  is  the  way  I  formerly 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  117 

comprehended  God  (aud  1  am  sure  not  I  alone).  But 
now  I  am  taught  that  God  is  one.  My  perplexity  before 
the  expression  that  God  is  one  and  three  is  not  only  not 
cleared  away,  but  my  conception  of  God  is  almost  lost 
when  I  read  the  fourteen  pages  which  prove  the  unity  of 
God.  From  the  very  first  words,  instead  of  elucidating 
that  terrible  statement  about  the  unity  and  trinity  of  God, 
which  has  crushed  out  my  idea  of  God,  I  am  carried  into 
the  sphere  of  discussion  about  those  Christian  and  pagan 
doctrines  which  have  denied  the  unity  of  God. 

It  says  there :  "  As  opponents  of  the  Christian  doctrine 
about  the  unity  of  God  have  appeared  (a)  first  of  all, 
naturally,  the  pagans  and  polytheists  who  were  to  be  con- 
verted to  Christianity  ;  (b)  then,  beginning  with  the  second 
century,  the  Christian  heretics,  known  under  the  general 
name  of  Gnostics,  of  whom  some,  under  the  influence  of 
Eastern  philosophy  and  theosophy,  recognized  the  one 
supreme  God,  but  at  the  same  time  admitted  a  multitude 
of  lower  gods,  or  seons,  who  emanated  from  him  and 
created  the  existing  world ;  and  others,  also  carried  away 
by  the  philosophy  which,  among  other  things,  endeavoured 
to  solve  the  origin  of  evil  in  the  world,  assumed  the 
existence  of  two  hostile,  coeval  principles,  the  principle 
of  good  and  the  principle  of  evil,  as  the  prime  causes  of 
all  good  and  evil  in  the  world ;  (c)  a  little  later,  with  the 
end  of  the  third,  and  still  more  beginning  with  the  middle 
of  the  fourth,  century,  the  new  Christian  heretics,  the 
Manicheans,  who,  with  the  same  idea,  assumed  two  gods, 
a  good  and  an  evil  god,  to  the  first  of  whom  they  subordi- 
nated the  eternal  kingdom  of  hght,  and  to  the  second  the 
eternal  kingdom  of  darkness  ;  (d)  from  the  end  of  the  sixth 
century,  a  small  sect  of  tritheists,  who^  not  understanding 
the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  three  persons  in  the  one 
Divinity,  assumed  three  distinct  gods,  who  were  as  dis- 
tinct as,  for  example,  three  persons  or  entities  of  the 
human  race,  although  they  all  had  the  same  substance, 


t) 


118  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

and  as  distinct  as  are  the  entities  of  any  kind  or  class  of 
beings ;  (e)  finally,  beginning  with  the  seventh  and  up  to 
the  twelfth  century,  tlie  Diacletians,  whom  many  regarded 
as  a  branch  of  the  Manichean  sect,  and  who,  indeed,  like 
the  Manicheans,  worshipped  two  gods,  the  god  of  good 
and  the  god  of  evil."     (pp.  76  and  77.) 

I  am  told  that  God  is  one  and  trine,  and  I  am  told  this 
is  a  divine,  revealed  truth.  I  cannot  understand  it,  and 
I  look  for  an  explanation.  What  use  is  there  in  telling 
me  how  incorrectly  the  pagans  believed  in  assuming  two 
or  three  gods  ?  It  is  clear  to  me  that  they  did  not  have 
the  same  conception  about  God  which  I  have,  —  so  what 
is  the  use  of  talking  to  me  about  them  ?  I  want  to  have 
the  dogma  explained  to  me,  so  why  talk  to  me  about  these 
pagans  and  Christiaas  who  believed  in  two  and  in  three 
gods  ?  I  am  not  a  bitheist  nor  a  tritheist.  The  refutal 
of  these  bitheists  and  tritheists  does  not  clear  up  my 
question  ;  and  yet  it  is  on  this  conception  of  the  heretics 
that  the  whole  exposition  of  the  dogma  about  the  unity 
of  God  is  based,  and  not  by  accident.  As  before,  when, 
in  the  question  about  the  comprehensibility  and  incom- 
prehensibility of  God,  the  exposition  of  the  church  doctrine 
about  it  was  connected  with  and  even  based  on  the 
refutal  of  the  false  doctrines,  so  even  here,  the  doctrine  is 
not  expounded  directly  on  the  basis  of  traditions,  reason, 
or  mutual  connection,  but  only  on  the  basis  of  the  con- 
tradictions of  the  other  teachings,  called  heresies.  In 
the  doctrine  about  the  Trinity,  the  divinity  of  the  Son,  the 
substance  of  the  Son,  there  is  everywhere  one  and  the  same 
method :  it  does  not  say  there  that  the  church  teaches  so 
and  so  for  this  or  that  reason,  but  it  always  says  that 
some  have  taught  that  God  is  entirely  comprehensible, 
others,  that  God  is  entirely  incomprehensible,  but  that 
neither  is  correct,  for  the  truth  is  so  and  so. 

In  the  doctrine  about  the  Son  it  does  not  say  that  the 
Son  is  this  or  that,  but  some  have  tauglit  that  he  is  en- 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  119 

tirely  God,  and  others,  that  he  is  entirely  man,  and  so  we 
teach  that  he  is  so  and  so. 

In  the  doctrine  about  the  church  and  grace,  about  the 
creation,  about  the  redemption,  there  is  everywhere  one 
and  the  same  method.  Never  does  the  doctrine  result 
from  itself,  but  always  from  a  dispute,  where  it  is  proved 
that  neither  one  opinion  nor  the  other  is  correct,  but  both 
taken  together. 

Here,  in  the  exposition  of  the  dogma  about  the  unity 
of  God,  this  method  is  particularly  striking,  because  the 
impossibility  of  polytheism,  or  rather  arithmotheism,  is  so 
indubitable  to  us  and  to  all  men  who  believe  in  God  that 
the  disclosure  of  the  dogma  about  this,  where  it  says 
that  God  is  trine,  acts  directly  contrary  to  the  aim  which 
the  author  has  in  view.  That  low  sphere  of  disputing 
with  the  polytheists,  to  which  the  author  descends,  and 
those  false  methods,  which  he  uses  in  doing  so,  almost 
destroy  the  concept  of  God,  which  every  believer  in  him 
has. 

The  author  says  that  God  is  one,  not  in  the  sense  in 
which  any  pagan  god,  taken  separately  from  all  the  other 
gods,  might  be. 

"  But  he  is  one  in  the  sense  of  there  being  no  other 
God,  neither  equal  to  him,  nor  higher,  nor  lower ;  but  he 
alone  is  the  only  God."  (p.  77.) 

Farther  on  the  words  of  some  father  of  the  church  are 
adduced :  "  When  we  say  that  the  Eastern  churches  be- 
lieve in  one  God  the  Father,  the  Almighty,  the  one  Lord, 
we  must  understand  here  that  he  is  called  one  not  in 
number,  but  in  totality  (iinum  non  numero  did,  scd 
universitate).  Thus,  if  somebody  speaks  of  one  man, 
or  one  horse,  one  is  in  this  case  taken  as  a  number ; 
for  there  may  be  another  man,  and  a  third,  and  equally 
a  horse.  But  where  we  speak  of  one  in  such  a  way  that 
a  second  and  third  can  no  longer  be  added,  there  one  is 
taken  not  as  a  number,  but  in  its  totality.     If,  for  exam- 


120  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

pie,  we  speak  of  the  one  sun,  tlie  word  '  one  '  is  used  in 
such  a  sense  that  no  second  or  third  can  be  added  to  it. 
So  much  the  more  God,  when  he  is  called  one,  is  to  be 
understood  not  as  one  in  number,  but  in  his  totality,  one 
in  the  sense  that  there  is  no  other  God."     (p.  77.) 

However  touching  these  words  of  the  father  of  the 
church  are  by  their  dim  striving  to  raise  his  conception 
to  a  higher  level,  it  is  evident  that  both  that  father  of 
the  church  and  the  author  are  struggling  only  with 
polytheism  and  want  the  only  God,  but  fail  to  under- 
stand that  the  words  "  one,  only "  are  words  expressing 
number  and  so  cannot  be  applied  to  God,  in  whom  we 
beheve.  His  saying  that  God  is  "  one  or  only  not  in 
number "  is  tantamount  to  saying :  "  The  leaf  is  green 
or  greenish  not  in  colour."  It  is  evident  that  here 
the  idea  of  God  as  one  sun  by  no  means  excludes 
the  possibihty  of  another  sun.  Thus  this  whole  pas- 
sage brings  us  only  to  the  conclusion  that  for  him 
who  wants  to  follow  the  consequent  discussions  it  is 
necessary  to  renounce  the  idea  of  God  as  the  beginning 
of  everything,  and  to  lower  this  idea  to  the  semi-pagan 
concept  of  a  one  and  only  God  as  he  is  conceived  in 
the  books  of  the  Old  Testament.  In  the  chapter  of  the 
proofs  from  the  Old  Testament,  texts  are  quoted  which 
reduce  the  conception  of  God  to  the  one,  exclusive 
God  of  the  Jews,  and  there  is  an  exposition  of  a  dis- 
pute this  tiiue  no  longer  with  the  heretics,  but  with 
modern  science.  The  opinion  of  modern  science  that 
the  God  of  the  Jews  was  conceived  by  them  differently 
from  what  God  is  conceived  now  by  believers  and  that 
they  did  not  even  know  the  one  God,  is  called  a  bold, 
manifest  calumny. 

"  After  that  it  is  a  bold,  manifest  calumny  to  assert 
that  in  the  Old  Testament  there  are  traces  of  the  teach- 
ing of  polytheism  and  that  the  God  of  the  Jews,  accord- 
ing to  their  Sacred   Books,  was   only  one  of  the  gods, 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  121 

a  national  god,  like  the  gods  of  the  other  contemporary 
nations.  In  confirmation  of  the  first  thought  they  point 
to  the  passages  in  Holy  Scripture  where  God  is  given  the 
name  of  Elohim  (gods,  from  '  Eloah,'  god)  in  the  plural 
number,  and  where  he  is  made  to  speak :  Let  us  make 
man  in  our  image,  after  our  likeness  (Gen.  i.  1  and  26); 
we  will  make  him  an  help  meet  for  him  (Gen.  ii.  18), 
and  elsewhere.  But  when  that  same  Moses,  in  whose 
books  these  passages  are  to  be  found,  so  often  and  so 
much  in  detail  preaches  monotheism  as  the  chief  part  of 
the  Sinaitic  legislation  ;  when  he  calls  all  the  pagan  gods 
vanities  and  idols,  and  in  every  way  tries  to  guard  the 
Jews  from  following  them  (Lev.  xvii.  7 ;  Deut.  xxxii. 
21,  and  elsewhere),  there  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  he  did 
not,  contrary  to  his  opinion,  openly  express  any  belief  in 
polytheism,  and  so  we  cannot  but  agree  with  the  holy 
fathers  of  the  church  that  here  God  is  indeed  represented 
in  the  plural,  but  that  not  the  idea  of  the  plurality  of 
gods  is  expressed  here,  but  of  the  divine  persons  in  one 
and  the  same  God,  that  is,  that  there  is  here  an  indication 
of  the  mystery  of  the  Holy  Trinity."   (pp.  79  and  80.) 

To  any  one  reading  the  Old  Testament  it  is  clear  that 
the  conception  of  the  God  of  the  Old  Testament  is  not  at 
all  the  idea  of  a  one  God,  but  of  a  particular  God,  one 
only  for  the  Jews.  Why  prove  the  contrary,  when  that 
is  so  unnecessary  ?  What  startles  us  here  is  not  so 
much  the  intentional  shutting  of  the  eyes  against  what 
is  manifest,  but  the  unscrupulousness  and  incompre- 
hensible boldness  with  which  that  is  denied  which  is 
so  evident  to  everybody  who  reads  the  Scripture,  that 
which  for  hundreds  of  years  has  been  worked  out  and 
made  clear  by  all  thinking  men  who  busy  themselves 
with  these  subjects. 

It  would  be  useless  to  quote  passages  from  the  Bible, 
from  which  it  is  clear  that  the  Jews  recognized  their 
God  as   one  only  in  comparison  with  other  gods.     The 


122  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

whole  Pentateuch  is  filled  with  such  passages :  Joshua 
xxiv.  2 ;  Gen.  xxxi,  19,  30 ;  Psalm  Ixxxvi.  8 ;  the 
first  of  Moses'  commandments.  We  wonder  for  whom 
these  discussions  are  WTitten ;  but  what  is  most  re- 
markable is  that  all  that  is  said  to  those  who  are 
seeking  for  an  explanation  of  the  God-revealed  truths 
about  God.  In  order  to  reveal  to  me  the  truth  about 
God,  which  is  in  the  keeping  of  the  church,  I  am  told 
unintelhgible  words,  God  is  one  and  three,  aud,  instead 
of  explaining  it,  they  begin  to  prove  to  me  what  I  and 
every  believer  know  and  cannot  help  knowing,  namely, 
that  God  has  no  number ;  and,  in  order  to  prove  that  to 
me,  I  am  taken  down  to  the  sphere  of  low,  savage  con- 
ceptions about  God,  and,  to  fill  the  cup,  they  quote  in 
proof  of  God's  unity  from  the  Old  Testament  what 
obviously  proves  the  opposite  to  me ;  and,  in  order  to 
confirm  these  blasphemous  speeches  about  God,  they 
tell  me  that  the  plurality  of  the  expression  is  a  hint 
at  the  Holy  Trinity,  that  is,  that  the  gods,  as  on 
Olympus,  sat  there,  and  said :  "  Let  us  make ! "  I 
feel  like  throwing  it  all  away  and  freeing  myself  from 
this  tormenting,  blasphemous  reading,  but  the  matter 
is  one  of  too  much  importance.  It  is  that  doctrine 
of  the  church  which  the  masses  believe  in  and  which 
gives  the  meaning  of  life  to  them.     I  must  proceed. 

There  follow  confirmations  of  the  unity  of  God  from  the 
New  Testament.  Again  there  is  proved  what  cannot  and 
ought  not  to  be  proved,  and  again  with  these  proofs  there 
is  a  debasing  of  the  idea  of  God  and  again  unscrupulous 
manipulations.  In  proof  of  the  unity  of  God  the  follow- 
ing is  quoted  : 

"  The  Saviour  himself,  in  reply  to  the  question  of  a 
certain  scribe.  Which  is  the  first  commandment  of  all  ? 
answered.  The  first  of  all  the  commandments  is  Hear,  0 
Israel ;  The  Lord  your  God  is  one  Lord  (Mark  xii. 
28-29)."     (p.  81.) 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    TUEOLOGY  123 

The  author  does  not  see  that  this  is  only  a  repetition  of 
an  Old  Testament  sentence,  and  that  it  says,  "  Your  God 
is  one."     But  more  remarkable  still  is  the  following : 

"  In  other  cases  he  expressed  this  truth  not  less  clearly 
or  even  more  clearly,  when,  for  example,  to  a  man,  who 
called  him  blessed  teacher,  he  remarked,  '  No  one  is 
blessed  except  the  one  God.'"     (p.  81.) 

The  author  does  not  see  that  here  the  word  "  one  "  has 
not  even  a  numerical  meaning.  Here  "  one "  does  not 
mean  "  the  only  God,"  but  "  only  God."  And  all  tliis  in 
order  to  prove  what  is  included  in  the  conception  of  God, 
which  no  one  who  pronounces  the  word  "  God  "  can  doubt. 
Why  this  blasphemy  ?  One  is  involuntarily  led  to  be- 
lieve that  all  that  is  only  in  order  intentionally  to  debase 
the  conception  of  God.  It  is  impossible  to  imagine  any 
other  purpose. 

But  that  is  not  enough  for  the  author.  He  considers  it 
necessary  to  adduce  more  proofs  of  the  unity  (that  is,  of 
what  cannot  be  connected  with  the  idea  of  God)  from 
reason.     Here  are  the  proofs  of  reason  : 

"  The  proofs  of  the  unity  of  God,  such  as  the  holy 
fathers  and  the  teachers  of  the  church  have  used  on  the 
basis  of  common  sense,  are  almost  the  same  as  those  which, 
are  generally  used  at  the  present  time  for  the  same  pur- 
pose. Some  of  them  are  borrowed  from  the  testimony  of 
history  and  the  human  soul  (anthropological),  others,  from 
the  examination  of  the  universe  (cosmological),  others 
again,  from  the  very  conception  of  God  (ontological)." 
(p.  83.) 

In  the  first  place,  this  is  not  correct,  because  such  proofs 
have  never  been  used  to  prove  the  unity  of  God.  They 
have  been  adduced  to  prove  the  existence  of  God,  and 
there  they  have  their  place  and  are  analyzed  in  Kant. 
In  the  second  place,  it  is  proved  that  none  of  them  are 
conclusive  to  reason.  Here  are  the  proofs  as  offered  by 
the  theologian  : 


124  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

"  (1)  All  uatious  have  preserved  an  idea  of  the  one  God." 
That  is  not  true.     The  author  himself  has  just  over- 
thrown the  polytheists. 

"  (2)  On  the  agreement  of  the  pagan  authors." 
This  again  is  not  true.     It  cannot  be  a  proof,  because  it 
does  not  refer  to  all  pagan  vi^riters. 

"  (3)  On  the  innateness  of  the  idea  about  one  God." 
This  is  again  not  true,  because  Tertullian's  words,  which 
are  quoted  in  confirmation  of  this  position,  are  said  about 
the  innateness  of  the  idea  about  God,  but  not  about  the 
innateness  of  the  idea  about  the  unity  of  God. 

"  Listen,"  Tertullian  says  to  the  pagans,  "  to  the  testi- 
mony of  your  soul,  which,  in  spite  of  the  prison  of  the 
body,  of  prejudices,  and  bad  bringing  up,  of  the  fury  of 
the  passions,  of  the  enslavement  to  false  gods,  when  it  is 
roused  as  though  from  intoxication  or  from  a  deep  pro- 
found sleep,  when  it  feels,  so  to  speak,  a  spark  of  health, 
involuntarily  invokes  the  name  of  the  one  true  God  and 
cries  :  '  Great  God  !  Good  God  !  Whatever  God  may 
give  ! '  Thus  his  name  is  to  be  found  on  the  lips  of 
all  men.  The  soul  also  recognizes  him  as  the  Judge 
in  the  following  words  :  '  God  sees,  I  hope  to  God,  God 
will  recompense  me.'  And  pronouncing  these  words, 
it  turns  its  glances,  not  to  the  Capitol,  but  to  heaven, 
knowing  that  there  is  the  palace  of  the  living  God,  that 
from  there  and  from  him  it  has  its  origin.  On  the  testi- 
mony of  tlie  soul  according  to  the  Christian  nature 
(naturaliter  Christiance)."     (p.  84.) 

This  exhausts  the  anthropological  proofs.  Here  are  the 
cosmological  proofs  : 

"  (1)   The  universe  is  one,  consequently  God  is  one." 
But  why  there  is  one  universe  is  not  apparent. 
"  (2)  In  the  hfe  of  the  world  there  is  order.     If  there 
existed   several   rulers  of  the  universe,  -many  gods,  nat- 
urally divers  among  themselves,  tliere  could  not  be  such  an 
orderly  flow  and  agreement  in  Nature ;  on  the  contrary, 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  125 

everything  would  turn  into  disorder  and  become  chaos ; 
then  each  god  would  govern  his  own  part,  or  the  whole 
universe,  according  to  his  will,  and  there  would  be 
eternal  conflicts  and  strife." 

"  (3)  For  the  creation  and  government  of  the  world 
one  almighty,  omniscient  God  is  sufficient ;  what,  then, 
are  other  gods  fur  ?  It  is  obvious  that  they  are  super- 
fluous." 

Those  are  the  cosmological  proofs.  What  is  this  ? 
A  bad  joke  ?  Eidicule  ?  No,  it  is  a  Theology,  the  dis- 
closure of  God-revealed  trutlis.  But  that  is  not  all. 
Here  are  the  ontological  proofs  : 

"  (1)  By  the  common  consent  of  all  men,  God  is  a 
being  than  whom  there  can  be  nothing  higher  or  more 
perfect.  But  the  highest  and  most  perfect  of  all  beings 
can  be  only  one,  for,  if  there  existed  others,  too,  equal  to 
it,  then  it  would  cease  being  the  highest  and  most  per- 
fect of  all,  that  is,  it  would  cease  being  a  god." 

Here  the  sophism  proves  nothing,  and  only  makes  us 
doubt  the  strictness  and  exactness  of  the  thoughts  of  the 
holy  fathers,  especially  of  St.  John  Damascene. 

The  first  proof  that  there  can  be  but  one  most  perfect 
and  highest  being  is  the  only  correct  reasoning  on  the 
attribute  of  him  whom  we  call  God,  but  is  by  no  means 
a  proof  of  the  unity  of  God ;  it  is  only  an  expression  of 
the  fundamental  concept  of  God,  which  by  its  very 
essence  excludes  the  possibiHty  of  uniting  this  idea  with 
the  conception  of  number.  For,  if  God  is  what  is  highest 
and  most  perfect,  then  all  the  previous  proofs  from  the 
Old  Testament  and  others  about  God  being  one  only 
impair  that  idea.  But,  ag^M,  as  in  the  discussion  of  com- 
prehensibility  and  incomprehensibility,  the  author  obvi- 
ously needs  here,  not  clearness  and  agreement  of  thought, 
but  the  mechanical  connection  with  the  tradition  of  the 
church  ;  this  connection  is  preserved  to  the  detriment  of 
the  idea,  and  at  all  cost. 


126  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

After  these  proofs  follow  special  proofs  of  the  unity  of 
God  in  opposition  to  the  bitheistic  heretics,  and  these 
proofs  have  no  connection  with  the  subject.  And  after 
all  that  it  is  assumed  that  the  first  dogma  about  the  unity 
of  God  has  been  disclosed,  and  the  author  proceeds  with 
the  teaching  about  the  moral  application  of  this  first 
dogma. 

The  author  has  the  idea  that  every  dogma  is  necessary 
for  the  saving  faith.  One  dogma  about  the  "  one  God  " 
has  been  revealed,  and  so  it  is  necessary  to  show  how 
this  dogma  is  helpful  in  the  salvation  of  men.  It  is  like 
this : 

"  Three  important  lessons  can  we  draw  for  ourselves 
from  the  dogma  about  the  unity  of  God.  Lesson  the 
first :  in  respect  to  our  relation  to  God.  *  I  beheve  in  one 
God,'  utters  every  Christian,  beginning  the  words  of  the 
Symbol,  —  in  one,  and  not  in  many,  or  two,  or  three,  as 
the  pagans  and  certain  heretics  used  to  believe :  and  so 
him  alone  shall  we  serve  as  God  (Deut.  vi.  13  ;  Matt.  iv. 
10) ;  and  love  him  alone  with  all  our  heart,  and  with  all 
our  soul  (Deut.  vi.  4,  5)  ;  and  put  all  our  confidence  in  him 
alone  (Psalm  cxvii.  8,  9  ;  1  Peter  i.  21) ;  at  the  same 
time  we  must  keep  away  from  all  kinds  of  polytheism 
and  idolatry  (Exod.  xx.  3-5).  The  pagans,  while  believ- 
ing in  one  supreme  God,  at  the  same  time .  recognized 
many  lower  gods,  and  among  this  number  included  incor- 
poreal spirits,  good  and  bad  (genii  and  demons),  and 
deceased  persons  who  had  in  some  way  been  famous  in 
life.  We,  too,  worship  good  angels,  and  we  worship  holy 
men  who  in  their  lifetime  have  excelled  in  faith  and 
piety ;  but  we  must  not  forget  that  we  have  to  worship 
them,  according  to  the  teachmg  of  the  Orthodox  Church, 
not  as  inferior  gods,  but  as  servants  and  ministers  of  God, 
as  intercessors  for  us  before  God,  and  as  promoters  of  our 
salvation,  —  we  must  worship  them  in  such  a  way  that 
the  whole  glory  should  refer  mainly  to  him  alone  as  won- 


CRITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC    THEOLOGT  127 

derful  among  his  saints  (Matt.  x.  40).  The  pagans  used 
to  make  sculptured  figures  of  their  gods  and  builded  idols, 
and  in  their  extreme  blindness  recognized  these  idols  as 
gods,  offering  them  divine  worship :  let  not  any  of  the 
Christians  fall  into  similar  idolatry !  We,  too,  use  and 
worship  the  representations  of  the  true  God  and  of  his 
saints,  and  bend  our  knees  before  them ;  but  we  use  and 
worship  them  only  as  holy  and  worshipful  representations, 
and  do  not  deify  them,  and,  in  making  our  obeisances  to 
the  holy  images,  we  worship  not  the  wood  and  paint,  but 
God  himself  and  his  saints,  such  as  are  represented  in 
the  images:  such  ought  to  be  the  true  worship  of  the 
holy  images,  and  then  it  will  not  in  the  least  resemble 
idolatry."  (pp.  89  and  90.) 

That  is,  according  to  this  preceding  discussion,  we  are 
given  a  lesson  to  do  precisely  as  the  idolaters  are  doing, 
but  to  remember  certain  dialectic  distinctions,  as  here 
expounded. 

"  It  is  well  known  that  the  pagans  personified  all  human 
passions  and  in  this  shape  deified  them ;  we  do  not  per- 
sonify the  passions  in  order  to  deify  them ;  we  know  how 
to  value  them,  but,  unfortunately,  Christians  frequently 
serve  their  passions  as  though  they  were  gods,  though  they 
themselves  do  not  notice  that.  One  is  so  given  to  belly 
service  and  in  general  to  the  sensual  pleasures  that  for 
him,  according  to  the  expression  of  the  apostle,  God 
is  his  belly  (Phil.  iii.  19);  another  is  so  zealously  con- 
cerned about  acquiring  treasure  and  with  such  love  guards 
it  that  his  covetousness  can,  indeed,  not  be  called  other- 
wise than  idolatry  (Col.  iii.  5)  ;  a  third  is  so  much  occu- 
pied with  his  deserts  and  privileges,  real  and  imaginary, 
and  places  them  so  high  that  he  apparently  makes  an 
idol  of  them  and  worships  them  and  makes  others  worship 
them  (Dan.  iii.).  In  short,  every  passion  and  attachment 
for  anything,  even  though  it  be  important  and  noble,  if 
we  abandon  ourselves  to  it  with  zeal,  so  as  to  forget  God 


128  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

and  act  contrary  to  his  will,  becomes  for  us  a  new  god,  or 
idol,  whom  we  serve ;  and  a  Christian  must  remember 
firmly  that  such  an  idolatry  can  never  be  coextensive 
with  the  service  of  the  one  God  ;  according  to  the  words 
of  the  Saviour :  No  man  can  serve  two  masters ;  ye 
cannot  serve  God  and  mammon  (Matt.  vi.  24)."  (pp.  90 
and  91.) 

What  is  this  ?  Where  is  this  taken  from  ?  What  a 
lot  of  things  have  been  said  and  connected  with  the  unity 
of  God  !  How  do  they  all  result  from  it  ?  There  is 
absolutely  no  answer  to  that. 

"  Second  lesson,  in  respect  to  our  relation  to  our  neigh- 
bours. Believing  in  the  one  God,  from  whom  we  all 
have  our  being,  through  whom  we  live  and  move  and  are 
(Acts  xvii.  28),  and  who  alone  forms  the  aim  of  all  of  us, 
we  are  naturally  incited  toward  union  among  ourselves." 

And  still  more  texts  and  still  less  connection  with  the 
preceding.  If  there  is  any  connection,  it  is  only  a  verbal 
one,  like  a  play  of  words  :  "  God  is  one,  —  we  must  strive 
after  oneness." 

'•  Finally,  the  third  lesson,  in  respect  to  our  relation  to 
ourselves.  Believing  in  God,  one  in  substance,  let  us  see 
to  it  that  in  our  own  being  we  may  reestablish  the  primi- 
tive union  which  has  been  impaired  in  us  through  sin. 
To-day  we  feel  the  cleaving  of  our  being,  the  disunion  of 
our  forces,  abilities,  strivings ;  we  delight  in  the  law 
of  God  after  the  inward  man :  but  we  see  another  law  in 
our  members,  warring  against  the  law  of  our  mind,  and 
bringing  us  into  captivity  to  the  law  of  sin  which  is  in  our 
members  (Rom.  vii.  22-23),  so  that  in  each  of  us  there 
are,  not  one,  but  two  men,  an  inward  and  an  outward,  a 
spiritual  and  a  carnal,  man.  Let  us  see  to  it  that  we  put 
off  concerning  the  former  conversation  the  old  man,  which 
is  corrupt  according  to  the  deceitful  lusts ;  and  that  we 
put  on  the  new  man,  which  after  God  is  created  in  right- 
eousness and  true  holiness  (Ephes.  iv.  22-24),  and  that  we 


CRITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  129 

thus  may  agaiu  appear  just  as  one  iu  our  substance  as 
when  we  came  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Creator." 

And  so  forth.  Without  the  least  connection  with  the 
dogmas  about  the  unity  of  God,  but  with  a  play  on 
the  word  "  unity,"  there  proceeds  a  discussion  on  the 
moral  apphcation  of  the  dogma,  but  not  a  word  is  there 
for  the  sohition  of  the  question  about  the  unity  and 
trinity.     I  proceed  to  the  next  division  of  Chapter  I. 


IV. 

I.  Of  the  essence  of  God. 

Of  the  essence  of  God?  It  was  said  that  God  is 
incomprehensible  in  his  essence.  Then  it  was  said  that 
he  was  a  trinity.  But  I  receive  no  reply  to  ray  answer, 
and  get  a  new  problem  :  God,  who  is  incomprehensible  in 
his  essence,  will  be  disclosed  to  me  in  his  essence. 

"  The  question  of  what  God  is  in  his  essence  {ovo-wl, 
<^vo-ts,  essentia,  substantia,  natura),  became,  even  in  the 
first  centuries  of  Christianity,  a  subject  of  especial  atten- 
tion for  the  teachers  of  the  Church,  on  the  one  hand,  as 
a  question  in  itself  of  great  importance  and  close  to  the 
mind  and  heart  of  each  man,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
because  at  that  time  the  question  was  taken  up  by  the 
heretics,  who  naturally  provoked  against  themselves 
the  defenders  of  Orthodoxy." 

Again,  in  order  to  disclose  the  truth  to  me,  I  am  intro- 
duced to  discussions  and  to  the  exposition  of  the  opinion 
of  this  man  and  of  that,  and  all  of  them  are  false,  and : 

"Avoiding  all  similar  finesses,  the  Orthodox  Church 
has  always  held  only  to  what  it  has  pleased  God  to  com- 
municate to  her  about  himself  in  his  revelation,  and  not 
having  at  all  in  mind  the  determination  of  the  substance 
of  God,  which  it  recognizes  to  be  incomprehensible  and, 
therefore,  strictly  speaking,  indeterminable,  but  wishing 
only  to  teach  its  children  as  precise,  exact,  and  accessible 
an  idea  about  God  as  is  possible,  it  says  about  him  as  fol- 
lows :  '  God  is  a  Spirit,  eternal,  all-good,  omniscient,  all- 
just,  almighty,  omnipresent,  unchangeable,  all-sufficing  to 

130 


CRITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  131 

himself,  all-blessed.'  Here  it  points  out  to  us,  in  the  first 
place,  the  incomprehensible  essence  of  God  (or  nature,  or 
substance),  as  much  as  it  can  be  comprehended  now  by 
our  reason,  and,  in  the  second  place,  the  essential  attri- 
butes by  which  this  essence,  or  more  correctly,  God  him- 
self, is  distinguished  from  other  essences."  (pp.  94  and 
95.) 

The  essence,  nature,  substance  of  God  is  pointed  out  to 
us,  and  so  are  the  attributes  by  which  God  is  distinguished 
from  other  essences.  What  ere  we  talking  about  ?  About 
a  hmited  being  or  about  C^dV  How  can  God  be  dis- 
tinguished from  others  ?  How  can  we  distinguish  in 
him  substance,  nature,  and  attributes  ?  Is  he  not  in- 
comprehensible ?  Is  not  he  higher  and  more  perfect  than 
anything?  Less  and  less  do  I  understand  the  sense  of 
what  they  are  trying  to  tell  me,  and  it  is  becoming  clearer 
and  clearer  to  me  that  for  some  reason  they  need  inevi- 
tably, by  rejecting  sound  reason,  the  laws  of  logic,  con- 
science, for  some  secret  purposes  they  need  to  do  what 
they  have  been  doing  until  now :  to  reduce  my  concep- 
tion about  God  and  the  conception  of  all  believers  to  a 
l)ase,  semi-pagan  conception.  Here  is  what  is  said  about 
this  nature  and  about  the  attributes  of  him  who  is  here 
called  God : 

"  17.  The  conception  about  the  essence  of  God.  God 
is  a  spirit.  The  word  '  spirit,'  indeed,  more  comprehen- 
sibly than  anything  else  signifies  for  us  the  incompre- 
hensible essence  or  substance  of  God.  We  know  of  only 
two  kinds  of  substances :  material,  complex  substances, 
which  have  no  consciousness  or  reason,  and  immaterial, 
simple,  spiritual  substances,  which  are  more  or  less  en- 
dowed with  consciousness  and  reason.  We  can  nowise 
admit  that  God  has  in  himself  the  substance  of  the  first 
kind,  since  we  see  in  all  his  acts,  both  of  creation  and  of 
foresight,  the  traces  of  the  greatest  reason.  On  the  other 
liaud,  we  are  of  necessity  forced  to  assume  the  substance 


132  CKITIQUE    OF    DOGMA!  J  C    THEOLOGY 

of  the  latter  kind  in  God,  through  the  constant  contem- 
plation of  these  traces."     (p.  95.) 

In  confirmation  of  these  unintelligible,  perverse,  intri- 
cate words  there  are  quoted  the  words  of  St.  John  Dam- 
ascene, which  are  almost  as  unintelligible  and  perverse. 

"  By  knowing  what  is  ascribed  to  God  and  from  that 
ascending  to  the  essence  of  God,  we  comprehend  not  the 
essence  itself,  but  only  what  refers  to  the  essence  (to.  irf.pl 
TYjv  ova-Lav,)  just  as,  knowing  that  the  soul  is  incorporeal, 
iuquantitative,  and  invisible,  we  do  not  yet  comprehend 
its  essence ;  just  so  we  do  not  comprehend  the  essence  of 
a  body,  if  we  kuow  that  it  is  white  or  black,  but  we  com- 
prehend only  what  refers  to  its  essence.  But  the  true 
word  teaches  us  that  the  Deity  is  simple  and  has  one 
action  (cvepyttav,)  simple  and  doing  good  in  everything." 
(p.  96.) 

However  painfully  hard  it  is  to  analyze  such  expres- 
sions, in  which  every  word  is  a  blunder  or  a  lie,  every 
connection  of  a  subject  and  predicate  a  tautology  or  a 
contradiction,  every  connection  of  one  sentence  with 
another  a  blunder  or  an  intentional  deception,  it  will 
have  to  be  done.     It  says  "  spirit  signifies  substance." 

Spirit  is  only  the  opposite  of  substance.  Spirit  is, 
above  all,  a  word  which  is  used  only  as  an  opposition  to 
every  substance,  to  everything  visible,  audible,  tangible, 
perceptible  by  the  senses.  Essence,  nature,  substance  is 
only  a  distinction  of  perceptive,  sensual  objects.  By  their 
nature,  by  their  substance,  by  their  essence,  stones,  trees, 
animals,  men  are  distinguished. 

But  spirit  is  that  which  has  not  the  essence  of  Nature. 
What,  then,  can  the  words,  "  Spirit  signifies  substance," 
mean  ?  Further :  "  We  know  only  two  kinds  of  sub- 
stances, complex  material  and  simple  spiritual  substances." 
We  do  not  know  and  cannot  know  any  simple  spiritual 
substances,  because  "  spiritual  substance  "  is  a  mere  con- 
tradiction.    The  plural  number  used  with  simple  spiritual 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  133 

substance  is  another  iuternal  contradiction,  because  what 
is  simple  cannot  be  two  or  many  ;  only  with  what  is  not 
simple  do  we  get  distinction  and  plurality.  The  addition 
to  the  word  "  substances  "  of  "  simple,  spiritual,  more  or 
less  endowed  with  consciousness  and  reason,"  introduces 
another  internal  contradiction,  by  suddenly  joining  to  the 
simple  concept  that  of  consciousness  and  reason,  accord- 
ing to  the  degree  of  which  this  something,  which  is  called 
simple  spiritual  substances,  is  divided. 

The  words,  "  To  admit  that  God  has  in  himself  the 
substance  of  the  first  kind,"  to  be  consistent,  ought  to 
have  been,  "  To  admit  that  the  one  God  is  complex,  ma- 
terial substances,"  which  is  the  merest  absurdity,  is  an 
admission  that  the  one  God  is  a  multiplicity  of  varied 
substances,  of  which  it  is  impossible  to  speak.  The 
words,  "  We  are  of  necessity  forced  to  assume  the  sub- 
stance of  the  latter  kind  in  God,  through  the  contempla- 
tion of  the  works  of  his  creation  and  foresight,  in  which 
traces  of  the  highest  reason  are  visible,"  signify  not  at  all 
that  God  is  a  spirit,  but  that  God  is  the  highest  reason. 
Thus,  in  examining  these  words,  it  turns  out  that,  instead 
of  saying  that  God  is  a  spirit,  they  say  that  God  is  the 
highest  intelHgence,  and  in  confirmation  of  these  words 
are  quoted  the  words  of  St.  John  Damascene,  who  says  a 
third  thing,  namely,  that  the  Deity  is  simple. 

What  is  remarkable  is  that  the  conception  of  God  as  a 
spirit,  in  the  sense  of  opposing  it  to  everything  material, 
is  indubitable  to  me  and  to  every  believer,  and  has 
clearly  been  established  in  the  first  chapters  about  the 
comprehensibility  of  God,  and  that  cannot  be  yjroved. 
But,  for  some  reason,  this  proof  is  attempted,  and  blas- 
phemous words  about  the  investigation  of  the  essence  of 
God  are  pronounced,  and  the  argument  ends  by  proving 
that,  instead  of  being  a  spirit,  God  is  reason,  or  that  the 
Deity  is  simple  and  has  but  one  action.  What  is  all  that 
proved  for  ?     Why,  in  order,  when  the  need  for  it  shall 


134  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

arise  during  an  argument,  to  introduce  the  conception  not 
of  the  one,  simple  spirit,  but  of  spiritual  essences,  more 
or  less  endowed  with  consciousness  and  reason  (men, 
demons,  angels,  who  will  be  required  later  on),  but  more 
especially  for  that  connection  with  the  word  "spirit," 
wliich  later  will  play  an  important  part  in  the  exposition 
of  the  doctrine.     We  shall  soon  see  for  what  purpose. 

"  And  if,  indeed,  the  revelation  itself  represents  to  us 
God  as  a  spiritual  being,  our  supposition  must  pass  over 
to  the  stage  of  an  indubitable  truth.  Now  revelation 
teaches  us,  indeed,  that  God  is  purest  spirit,  not  con- 
nected with  any  body,  and  that,  consequently,  his  nature 
is  entirely  insubstantial,  not  partaking  of  the  slightest 
complexity,  simple."  (pp.  95  and  96.) 

From  the  words  "  purest  spirit,"  not  coanected  with 
any  "  body,"  it  appears  at  once  that  the  word  •'  spirit "  is 
no  longer  understood  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  taken 
in  all  languages,  not  as  it  is  understood  in  the  gospel  dis- 
course with  Nicodemus,  "  The  spirit  bloweth  where  it 
listeth,"  that  is,  as  a  complete  opposite  to  everything  ma- 
terial, but  as  something  that  can  be  defined,  separated 
from  something  else.  Then  Holy  Scripture  is  quoted  to 
prove  that  God  is  spirit,  but,  as  always,  the  texts  prove 
the  very  opposite. 

"  Can  any  hide  himself  in  secret  places  that  I  shall  not 
see  him  ?  saith  the  Lord.  Do  not  I  fill  heaven  and  earth  ? 
saith  the  Lord  (Jer.  xxiii.  24;  Psalm  cxxxix.  7-12); 
(h)  everybody  has  a  definite  shape  and  so  can  be  repre- 
sented, but  God  has  no  sensual  form,  and  so  the  Old 
Testament  strictly  prohibited  his  being  represented :  To 
whom  then  will  you  liken  God  ?  or  what  likeness  will 
you  compare  unto  him?  (Is.  xl.  18,  25)  ;  take  ye  there- 
fore good  heed  unto  yourselves ;  for  ye  saw  no  manner  of 
similitude  on  the  day  that  the  Lord  spake  unto  you  in 
Horeb  out  of  the  midst  of  the  fire :  lest  ye  corrupt  your- 
selves, and  make  you  a  graven  image,  the  similitude  of 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  135 

any  figure,  the  likeness  of  male  or  female  (Deut.  iv. 
15-16);  (c)  for  the  same  reason  everybody  may  be 
visible,  but  God  is  called  the  invisible  God  (Col.  i.  15  ; 
1  Tim.  i.  17 ;  Rom.  i.  20),  whom  no  man  hath  seen  at  any 
time  (John  i.  18  and  vi.  46),  and  in  particular,  whom  no 
man  hath  seen,  nor  can  see  (1  Tim.  vi.  16  ;  cf.  Exod,  xxx. 
18-23  );  (d)  everybody,  being  composed  of  parts,  is  de- 
structible and  perishable,  but  God  is  the  immortal  king 
of  the  ages  (1  Tim.  i.  17)."    (pp.  96  and  97.) 

Is  it  not  clear  that  God  who  seeth  everywhere,  who  has 
spoken  from  the  midst  of  the  fire  on  Mount  Horeb,  who 
lias  no  similitude,  that  is,  no  form,  who  is  immortal,  is  a 
spirit  ?  It  is  evident  that  it  is  necessary  to  be  able  to 
speak  of  God  as  of  a  definite  being,  something  like  a  man ; 
but  it  is  also  necessary  to  speak  of  God  as  of  an  entirely 
simple,  inaccessil)le  spirit.  It  is  the  old  catch  ;  in  all  the 
chapters  of  this  book,  two  different  conceptions  are  pur- 
posely united  into  one,  in  order,  in  case  of  necessity,  to 
exchange  one  for  the  other  and,  making  use  of  that, 
mechanically  to  pick  out  all  the  texts  of  Scripture  and  so 
mix  them  up  that  it  shall  be  possible  to  blend  what  is 
tliscordant. 

After  that  follows  a  statement  of  the  teaching  of  the 
church  and,  as  always,  not  the  exposition  of  the  dogma, 
not  an  explanation,  not  a  discussion,  but  a  controversy. 
The  controversy  is  against  the  anthropomorphists  and 
pantheists.  It  is  argued  that  it  is  not  true  that  God  is 
clothed  in  flesh  and  is  in  everything  like  man.  If  the 
Scripture  speaks  of  his  body,  "  we  must  by  his  eyes,  eye- 
lids, and  vision  understand  his  all-seeing  power,  his  all- 
embracing  knowledge,  because  through  the  sense  of  vision 
we  obtain  a  fuller  and  more  correct  knowledge.  By  his 
ears  and  hearing  we  must  understand  his  merciful  atten- 
tion and  reception  of  our  prayers ;  for  even  we,  when  we 
are  asked,  graciously  incline  our  ear  to  the  su]iplicants, 
showing  them  our  favour  by  means  of  this  sense.    By  his 


136  CKITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

mouth  and  speaking  we  must  understand  the  mauifes- 
tation  of  God's  will,  for  we,  too,  manifest  our  intimate 
thoughts  by  means  of  our  lips  and  through  speech.  By 
his  food  and  drink  —  our  agreement  with  the  will  of  God, 
for  by  means  of  the  seuse  of  taste  we  satisfy  the  necessary 
demands  of  our  being.  By  smelling  —  the  acceptance  of 
our  thoughts  as  directed  toward  God,  and  of  our  hearty 
disposition,  for  by  means  of  the  sense  of  smell  do  we 
become  aware  of  perfume.  By  his  face  we  must  under- 
stand his  manifestation  in  his  works,  for  our  faces  also 
manifest  us.  By  his  hands  — ■  his  active  force,  for  we,  too, 
do  everything  useful  and,  especially,  everything  costly 
with  our  own  hands.  By  his  right  hand  —  his  succour 
in  just  works,  for  we,  too,  in  performing  more  noble  and 
important  deeds,  such  as  demand  a  greater  force,  most 
generally  make  use  of  the  right  hand.  By  his  touch  — 
an  exact  knowledge  and  investigation  of  the  smallest  and 
the  hidden,  because  those  who  are  touched  by  us  cannot 
conceal  anything  upon  their  bodies.  By  his  feet  and 
walking  —  his  coming  and  appearance,  in  order  to  aid  the 
needy,  or  defend  them  against  enemies,  or  to  do  some 
other  act,  even  as  we  walk  with  our  feet  to  some  destina- 
tion. By  his  oath  —  the  inalterableness  of  his  counsel, 
for  between  us,  too,  mutual  agreements  are  confirmed  by 
an  oath.  By  his  anger  and  fury  —  his  loathing  and 
hatred  of  evil,  for  we,  too,  become  angry  and  hate  what 
is  contrary  to  our  will.  By  his  forgetfulness,  sleep,  and 
dreaming  —  his  slowness  in  wreaking  vengeance  on  his 
enemies,  and  his  delaying  his  succour  until  the  proper 
time."     (pp.  99  and  100.) 

These  explanations  and  refutations  of  the  anthropomor- 
phists,  independently  of  the  arbitrariness  and  unintelligi- 
bility  of  the  explanations  (as,  for  example,  why  by  food 
and  drink  is  to  be  understood  our  agreement  with  the  will 
of  God),  these  explanations  descend  lower  and  lower  into 
the  sphere  of  petty,  often  stupid,  dialectics,  and  farther 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  137 

and  farther  does  the  hope  recede  of  having  the  God- 
revealed  tnit)is  explained. 

After  this,  in  the  2d  division,  there  are  adduced  the 
proofs  of  the  fathers  of  the  church  that  God  is  an  incor- 
poreal, immaterial  essence,  and  the  same  argument  is  con- 
tinued. What  is  quoted  is  not  the  false,  but  the  queer, 
reasoning  of  the  fathers  of  the  church,  which  shows  that 
the  fathers  of  the  church  were  far  from  that  conception 
of  God  which  is  common  with  every  believer  at  the  pres- 
ent time.  They  take  pains  to  prove,  for  example,  that 
God  is  not  hmited  by  anything,  or  is  not  subject  to  suffer- 
ing, or  not  subject  to  destruction.  No  matter  how  worthy 
the  labours  of  these  fathers  have  been  in  the  time  of 
struggle  against  the  pagans,  the  statement  that  God  is 
not  subject  to  suffering  has  involuntarily  the  same  effect 
upon  us  as  would  have  the  statement  that  God  does  not 
need  any  raiment  or  food,  and  proves  that  to  a  man  who 
argues  the  indestructibility  of  God  the  conception  of  the 
Deity  is  not  clear  and  not  settled.  It  does  not  explain 
anything  to  us  and  only  ofiends  our  feeling.  But,  appar- 
ently, the  compiler  needs  it :  precisely  what  offends  our 
feeling  is  what  he  needs,  namely,  the  abasement  of  the 
idea  of  God. 

In  the  3d  division  the  compiler  quotes,  in  the  shape  of 
a  proof,  that  invective  which  the  fathers  of  the  church 
uttered  in  defence  of  their  opinion : 

"  In  connection  with  this  it  is  important  for  us  to  notice 
that  the  ancient  pastors,  rebuking  the  errors  of  the  anthro- 
pomorphists,  called  their  opinion  a  senseless,  most  stupid 
heresy,  and  accounted  the  anthropomorphists,  who  held 
this  opinion,  as  heretics." 

And  as  the  last  argument  of  the  church  the  following 
is  adduced  : 

"  For  this  reason  we  hear,  among  other  things,  in  the 
'order  of  Orthodoxy,'  which  the  Orthodox  Church  per- 
forms in  the  first  week  of  the  Great  Lent,  the  following 


138  CKITIQUE    OP^    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

words :  '  Anathema  on  those  who  say  that  God  is  not 
sph-it,  but  flesh!'" 

That  ends  all  we  know  about  the  substance  of  God, 
namely,  that  he  is  a  spirit.  What  is  the  deduction  from 
all  that  ?  That  God  is  not  an  essence,  but  a  spirit :  all 
that  results  from  the  conception  of  God,  and  all  believers 
cannot  help  thinking  otherwise.  This  is  partly  confirmed 
by  this  article.  But,  in  addition  to  that,  we  have  the 
statement  that  this  spirit  is  something  special,  separate, 
almost  incomprehensible.  In  this  verbal  blending  of  the 
contradictions  consists  the  subject  matter  of  Art.  18. 
What  the  purpose  is,  appears  clearly  from  the  following 
18  th  article. 

"18.  The  idea  of  the  essential  properties  of  God, — 
their  number  and  division.  —  The  essential  properties 
in  God  (to.  ovaiM^r]  tStw/xara,  proprictates  essentiales) ,  or,  in 
one   word    (dftcoju-ara,  Soy/aara,  inLTrjSevfmTa,  Ctttrihuta,  pcrfec- 

tiones),  are  such  as  belong  to  the  divine  essence  alone  and 
distinguish  him  from  all  other  beings,  and  so  they  are 
properties  which  are  equally  applicable  to  all  the  persons 
of  the  Holy  Trinity,  who  form  one  in  their  essence,  for 
which  reason  they  are  also  called  general  divine  proper- 
ties (iSiw/Aara  Kotwx)  in  contradistinction  to  special  or 
personal  attributes  (ra  Trpoa-oi-mKa  iSuoixaTa,  proprietates 
personales),  which  belong  to  each  person  of  the  Deity 
taken  separately  and  thus  distinguish  them  among  them- 
selves."    (p.  102.) 

It  turns  out  that  God,  a  simple  spirit,  has  prop- 
erties which  distinguish  him  from  all  other  beings. 
More  than  that :  in  addition  to  the  general,  divine  attri- 
butes, there  are  others,  which  distinguish  the  same  God 
in  the  three  persons,  though  nothing  has  as  yet  been  said 
about  what  the  Trinity,  and  what  a  person  is.  , 

"  It  is  impossible  to  define  the  number  of  essential 
or  common  properties  of  God.  Though  the  church,  in 
giving  us  a  sound  idea  about  God,  mentions  some  of  these 


CRITIQUE   OF   DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY  139 

('  God  is  a  Spirit,  eternal,  all-good,  omuiscieut,  all-just, 
alijiighty,  omiiipieseiit,  uuchangeable,  all-sufficing  to  him- 
self, all-blessed'),  it  at  the  same  time  remarks  that  God's 
general  properties  are  endless,  for  everything  which  is 
said  in  revelation  about  God,  one  in  essence,  in  a  certain 
sense  forms  the  properties  of  the  divine  being.  Con- 
sequently we,  following  the  example  of  the  churcli,  shall 
limit  ourselves  to  the  analysis  of  some  of  them,  the  chief 
ones,  such  as  more  than  any  others  characterize  the 
essence  of  God  and  embrace  or  explain  the  other,  less 
perceptible  properties,  and  such  as  are  more  clearly  men- 
tioned in  the  divine  revelation."  (p.  102.) 

The  attributes  of  God  are  numberless,  and  so  we  are 
going  to  speak  of  some  of  them.  But,  if  they  are  number- 
less, a  few  of  them  are  an  infinitely  small  part,  and  so 
it  is  unnecessary  and  impossible  to  speak  of  them.  But 
not  so  judges  the  Theology.  Not  only  of  some,  but  of  the 
chief  ones  among  them !  How  can  there  be  a  chief  one 
in  an  endless  number  ?     All  are  equally  infinitely  small. 

"We  shall  speak  of  such  as  more  than  any  other 
characterize  the  Deity." 

Characterize  how  ?  God  has  a  character,  that  is,  the 
distinction  of  one  god  from  others.  No,  it  is  clear  that 
we  are  talking  about  something  else  and  not  about  God. 
But  let  us  proceed. 

"  In  order  to  have  distinct  ideas  about  the  essential 
properties  of  God  and  to  expound  the  teaching  about* 
them  in  a  certain  system,  the  theologians  have  since 
antiquity  tried  to  divide  them  into  classes,  and  of  such 
divisions,  especially  in  the  mediteval  and  modern  period, 
many  have  been  invented,  and  all  of  them,  though  not  in 
the  same  degree,  have  their  virtues  and  their  defects. 
The  main  reason  for  the  latter  is  quite  comprehensible : 
the  attributes  of  the  divine  being,  like  the  essence  itself, 
are  entirely  incomprehensible  to  us.  Therefore,  without 
making  a  vain  attempt  to  find  any  one  most  perfect  divi- 


140  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

sion  of  them,  we  shall  select  the  one  which  to  us  appears 
most  correct  and  most  simple."  (pp.  102  and  103.) 

The  properties  of  the  essence  of  God,  as  well  as  the 
essence  itself,  are  quite  incomprehensible  to  us.  Well  ? 
Let  us  not  scoff  and  talk  of  the  incomprehensible !  No. 
"  We  shall  select  a  division  which  to  us  will  appear  most 
correct." 

"  God,  according  to  his  essence,  is  a  spirit ;  but  in  every 
spirit  we  distinguish,  in  particular,  in  addition  to  the 
spiritual  nature  proper  (the  substance),  two  main  forces 
or  faculties  :  mind  and  will." 

How  can  there  be  the  division  into  mind  and  will  in 
a  simple  spirit  ?  Where  was  that  said  ?  There  was  a 
general  statement  about  the  spirit,  but  there  was  nothing 
said  about  its  having  mind  and  will.  Mind  and  will  are 
words  with  which  we,  men,  and  only  a  few  of  us,  distin- 
guish in  ourselves  two  activities.  But  why  has  God 
that? 

"  In  conformity  with  this,  the  essential  properties  of 
God  may  be  divided  into  three  classes :  (1)  into  proper- 
ties of  the  divine  essence  in  general,  that  is,  into  such  as 
belong  equally  to  the  spiritual  nature  (substance)  of  God 
and  to  its  two  forces,  to  mind  and  will,  and  distinguish 
God,  as  a  spirit  in  general,  from  all  other  beings ; 
(2)  into  properties  of  the  divine  mind,  that  is,  such  as 
belong  only  to  the  divine  mind ;  and  finally  (3)  into 
properties  of  the  divine  will,  that  is,  such  as  belong  only 
to  the  divine  will." 

Had  I  not  better  throw  it  all  up  ?  For  is  that  not  the 
delirium  of  an  insane  man  ?  No,  I  said  to  myself  that  I 
would  analyze  strictly  and  thoroughly  the  whole  exposi- 
tion of  the  Theology. 

Then  follow  60  pages  on  the  properties  of  God.  Here 
are  the  contents  of  these  60  pages : 

"  19.  The  properties  of  the  divine  essence  in  general. 
God,  as  a  spirit,  is  distinguished  from  all  other  beings  in 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  141 

general,  in  that  they  are  all  limited  in  their  existence  and 
in  their  forces,  consequently  more  or  less  imperfect,  while 
he  is  an  unlimited  spirit,  or  limitless,  hence  all-perfect." 
(pp.  103  and  104.) 

'  "  God  is  distinguished  from  all  other  beings  in  general." 
This  false  conception  of  God  as  distinguished  from  all 
other  beings  is  apparently  needed  because  before  and 
many  times  afterward  and  here  it  says  that  God  is  limit- 
less, and  therefore  it  is  impossible  to  say  that  the  limitless 
can  be  distinguished  from  anything. 

"  In  particular,  all  other  beings :  (a)  are  limited  in  the 
beginning  and  during  the  continuation  of  their  existence ; 
all  of  them  have  received  their  existence  through  God  and 
are  in  constant  dependence  on  him,  and  partly  on  each 
other ;  God  does  not  receive  his  existence  from  anybody, 
and  in  nothing  is  he  dependent  on  anybody,  —  he  is  self- 
existing  and  independent ;  (h)  they  are  limited  in  the 
manner  or  form  of  their  existence,  for  they  are  inevitably 
subject  to  the  conditions  of  space  and  time,  and  so  are 
subject  to  changes ;  God  is  above  all  conditions  of  space, 
—  he  is  immeasurable  and  omnipresent,  —  and  above 
all  conditions  of  time,  —  he  is  eternal  and  unchangeable; 
(c)  finally  they  are  limited  in  their  strength,  both  in 
quality  and  in  quantity  ;  but  for  God  there  are  no  limits 
even  in  this  respect,  —  he  is  all-powerful  and  almighty. 
Thus  the  chief  qualities  which  belong  to  God  in  his 
essence  in  general  are:  (1)  unlimitedness  or  all-perfection, 
(2)  self-existence,  (3)  independence,  (4)  immeasurableness 
and  omnipresence,  (5)  eternity,  (6)  unchangeableuess,  and 
(7)  almightiness." 

Then,  God  is  distinguished  from  other  beings  in 
particular : 

"  (1)  By  his  unlimitedness  or  all-perfection."  Why  un- 
Kmitedness  is  equal  to  all-perfection  remains  unexplained, 
both  here  and  elsewhere. 

"  (2)  By  his  self-existence  and  (3)  independence."    What 


142  CRITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY 

difference  there  is  between  self-existence  and  independ- 
ence again  remains  unexplained.  Self-existence  is  ex- 
plained as  follows : 

"  God  is  called  self-existent  because  he  does  not  owe 
his  existence  to  any  other  being,  but  has  his  existence, 
and  everything  else  which  he  has,  from  himself." 
His  independence  is  explained  on  p.  110  as  follows : 
"  Under  the  name  of  independence  in  God  we  under- 
stand a  quality  by  force  of  which  he  is  in  his  essence  and 
forces  and  actions  determined  only  by  himself  and  not  by 
anything  external,  and  he  is  self-satisfied  {avTapK-qs,  dvev- 

8e7^s),  self-willed  (avrt^ovato<;),  SClf-ruled  (avTOKpa.Trj<i),  —  this 

property  of  God  results  from  the  preceding.  If  God  is  a 
self-existent  being  and  everything  he  has  he  has  through 
himself,  that  means  that  he  is  not  dependent  on  any- 
body, at  least  not  in  his  existence  and  powers."  (p.  110.) 
Thus,  in  the  first  attribute  of  unlimitedness  there  is 
attached  to  it,  for  some  reason,  the  idea  of  all-perfection 
(an  unused  and  badly  compounded  word),  which  from  its 
composition  has  an  entirely  different  meaning  from  un- 
limitedness. But  the  words  "  self-existence  "  and  "  inde- 
pendence," which,  according  to  the  definition  of  the 
author  himself,  express  the  identical  idea,  are  separated. 

(4)  Immeasurableness,  which  is  only  a  synonym 
of  unlimitedness,  is  suddenly  combined  into  one  with 
omnipresence,  which  has  nothing  in  common  with  that 
idea.     Then : 

(5)  Eternity  and  (6)  unchangeableness  are  again  sepa- 
rated, though  they  form  one  idea,  for  changeableuess 
takes  place  only  in  time,  and  time  is  only  the  conse- 
quence of  changeableuess. 

(7)  Almightiness,  which  is  defined  by  the  concept 
of  unlimited  force,  though  neither  before  nor  later  will 
there  be  anything  said  about  force.  But  that  is  far 
from  being;  all.  We  must  remember  that  after  the 
disclosure  of  the  essence  of  God   in  himself  (Art.   17, 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC   THEOLOGy  143 

p.  95),  we  have  had  disclosed  to  us  the  essential  prop- 
erties of  God  (Art.  18,  p.  102),  Of  the  essential  proper- 
ties of  God  there  have  now  been  disclosed  to  us  the 
essential  properties  of  God  in  general  (Art.  19,  p.  103). 
We  still  are  to  get  the  disclosure  of  the  properties,  at 
first,  of  God's  mind  (Art.  20,  p.  122),  and  then  of  the 
properties  of  God's  will*  (Art.  21,  p.  129). 

"  God's  miud  may  be  viewed  from  two  sides :  from  the 
theoretical  and  from  the  practical  side,  that  is,  in  itself 
and  in  relation  to  God's  actions.  In  the  first  case  we 
get  the  idea  of  one  property  of  this  mind,  of  omniscience ; 
in  the  latter,  of  another,  of  the  highest  all-wisdom." 

God  knows  everything  in  himself.  What  else  does 
he  know  if  he  has  all- wisdom  ?     On  p.  127  it  says : 

"AU-wisdom  consists  in  the  completest  knowledge  of 
the  best  purposes  and  the  best  means,  and  at  the  same 
time  in  the  fullest  ability  to  apply  the  latter  to  the  first." 

The  knowledge  of  the  best  purposes  and  means  !  But 
how  can  an  unlimited,  all-satisfied  being  have  any  pur- 
poses ?  And  what  concept  of  means  can  there  be  applied 
to  an  alnjighty  being  ?     But  that  is  not  enough : 

"  Holy  Scripture  defines  in  detail  the  subjects  of  the 
divine  knowledge.  It  bears  testimony  in  general  to 
the  fact  that  God  knows  everything,  and  in  particular, 
that  he  knows  himself  and  everything  outside  of  himself : 
everything  possible  and  actual,  everything  past,  present, 
and  future."  (p.  122.) 

Then,  in  parts,  with  quotations  from  Holy  Scripture, 
the  author  proves  that  God  knows  (a)  everything,  (h) 
himself,  (c)  everything  possible,  (d)  everything  existing, 
(e)  the  past,  (/)  the  present,  (g)  the  future.  But  God  is 
outside  of  time,  according  to  the  Theology,  above  time,  — 
so  what  past  and  future  is  there  for  him  ?  And  God  is 
outside  of  space,  —  he  is  an  unlimited,  limitless,  omnis- 
cient being,  —  how  can  there  be  anytliing  "  outside  of  " 
him  ?     "  Outside  of "  means  beyond   the  limits,  beyond 


144  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

the  borders  of  something  limited.  I  am  uot  exaggerat- 
ing, am  not  on  purpose  expressing  myself  in  a  strange  man- 
ner, on  the  contrary,  I  am  using  every  effort  to  soften  the 
wildness  of  the  expressions.  Read  pp.  123-125  !  What 
am  I  saying !  Open  those  two  volumes  anywhere,  and 
read  them !  It  is  all  the  time  the  same,  and  the  farther 
you  proceed,  the  more  liberated  from  all  laws  of  the  con- 
nection of  thoughts  and  words  ! 

"21.  The  will  of  God  may  be  viewed  from  two  sides : 
in  itself  and  in  relation  to  creatures.  In  the  first  case  it 
presents  itself  to  us  (a)  in  the  highest  degree  free  accord- 
ing to  its  essence,  and  (b)  all-holy  in  its  free  activity.  In 
the  latter  it  appears,  first  of  all,  (a)  all-good,  —  since 
goodness  is  the  first  and  chief  cause  of  all  divine  acts 
in  relation  to  all  creatures,  rational  and  irrational ;  then, 
(b)  in  particular,  in  relation  to  rational  creatures  only, 
true  and  correct,  for  it  is  revealed  to  them  in  the  form 
of  a  moral  law  for  their  wills,  and  in  the  form  of 
promises  or  moral  incitements  toward  the  performance 
of  this  law ;  finally  (c)  all-just,  in  so  far  as  it  watches 
the  moral  actions  of  these  creatures  and  repays  them 
according  to  their  deserts.  Thus  the  chief  properties 
of  the  will  of  God,  or,  more  correctly,  the  chief  divine 
properties  according  to  his  will,  are  (1)  highest  freedom, 
(2)  completest  hohness,  (3)  infinite  goodness,  (4)  com- 
pletest  truth  and  correctness,  and  (5)  infinite  justice." 
(pp.  129  and  130.) 

So  it  turns  out  that  the  limitless,  unlimited  God  is 
free,  and  this  is  proved  by  texts.  And,  as  always,  the 
texts  show  that  those  who  wrote  and  spoke  those  words 
did  not  understand  God  and  only  approached  a  com- 
prehension of  him  and  spoke  of  a  strong,  pagan  god, 
but  not  of  the  God  we  believe  in. 

"  I  have  made  the  earth,  the  man  and  the  beast 
that  are  upon  the  ground,  by  my  great  power  and 
by    my    out-stretched    arm,    and    have    given    it    unto 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  145 

whom  it  seemed  meet  unto  me  (Jer.  xxvii.  5).  I 
will  have  mercy  on  whom  I  will  have  mercy,  and 
I  will  have  compassion  on  whom  I  will  have  com- 
passion (Rom  ix.  15;  cf. ,  Exod.  xxxii.  19).  And  he 
doeth  according  to  his  will  in  the  army  of  heaven, 
and  among  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth :  and  none 
can  stay  his  hand,  or  say  unto  him,  What  doest 
thou  ?  (Dan.  iv.  35  ;  cf.  Job  xxiii.  13).  The  Most  High 
ruleth  in  the  kingdom  of  men,  and  giveth  it  to 
whomsoever  he  will  (Dan.  iv.  17,  25,  32).  The  king's 
heart  is  in  the  hand  of  the  Lord,  as  the  rivers  of  water : 
he  turneth  it  whithersoever  he  will  (Prov.  xxi.  1).  Are 
not  two  sparrows  sold  for  a  farthing  ?  and  one  of  them 
shall  not  fall  on  the  ground  without  your  Father  ;  but 
the  very  hairs  of  your  head  are  all  numbered  (Matt.  x.  29, 
30).  (c)  In  the  redemption  of  man :  Having  predesti- 
nated us  unto  the  adoption  of  children  by  Jesus  Christ 
to  himself,  according  to  the  good  pleasure-  of  his  will 
(Ephes.  i.  5).  Having  made  known  unto  us  the  mys- 
tery of  his  will,  according  to  his  good  pleasure  which 
he  hath  purposed  in  himself  (Ephes.  i.  9).  And  Christ 
the  Saviour  gave  himself  for  our  sins,  that  he  might 
dehver  us  from  this  present  evil  world,  according  to  the 
will  of  God  and  our  Father :  to  whom  be  glory  for  ever 
and  ever  (Gal.  i.  4,  5).  (d)  For  our  regeneration  and 
purification  "  (all  this  is  an  account  of  the  manifestations 
of  God's  freedom)  :  "  Of  his  own  will  begat  he  us  with 
the  word  of  truth,  that  we  should  be  a  kind  of  firstfruits 
of  his  creatures  (James  i.  18).  But  the  manifestation  of 
the  Spirit  is  given  to  every  man  to  profit  withal ;  for  to 
one  is  given  by  the  Spirit  the  word  of  wisdom ;  to 
another,  the  word  of  knowledge  by  the  same  Spirit.  .  .  . 
But  all  these  worketh  that  one  and  the  self-same  Spirit, 
dividing  to  every  man  severally  as  he  will  (1  Cor.  xii. 
7,8,11). 

"  The  holy  fathers  and  teachers  of  the  church,  who  in 


146  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

their  writings  mentioned  the  divine  freedom  in  general, 
frequently  expressed  their  ideas  with  peculiar  clearness,  in 
three  cases,  (a)  when  they  armed  themselves  against  the 
ancient  philosophers,  who  affirmed  that  the  universe  was 
eternal  and  had  sprung  from  God  not  by  his  will,  but  of 
necessity,  as  the  shadow  from  the  body,  or  the  glow  from 
the  light,  (b)  when  they  refuted  the  errors  of  the  pagans 
and  certain  heretics,  who  asserted  that  everything  in  the 
universe  and  God  himself  were  subject  to  fate,  and  (c) 
when,  wishing  to  define  wherein  the  image  of  God  con- 
sisted in  us,  they  assumed  it  to  be  in  man's  free  will.  In 
all  these  cases  they  pointed  out  that  God  was  not  sub- 
ject to  any  necessity  and  quite  freely  determined  himself 
toward  actions ;  that  he  had  created  in  the  beginning 
everything  which  he  had  wished  and  as  he  had  wished, 
and  continued  to  do  everything  in  the  world  only  by  his 
will,  and  that  he,  in  general,  in  his  essence,  was  self-willed. 

"Indeed,  if  God  is  a  most  perfect  spirit,  and  an  inde- 
pendent and  almighty  spirit,  our  reason,  too,  must  be  con- 
scious of  the  fact  that  God  is  free  in  the  highest  degree 
according  to  his  essence ;  freedom  is  a  most  essential 
property  of  a  conscious  spirit,  and  he  who  is  all-powerful 
and  holds  everything  in  his  power,  himself  not  dependent 
on  anything,  cannot  be  subject  to  necessity  or  compulsion. 

"  (2)  Completest  holiness.  Calling  God  holy  (aytos, 
sanctus),  we  profess  that  he  is  completely  pure  from  all 
sin,  that  he  cannot  even  sin,  and  in  all  his  acts  is  entirely 
true  to  the  moral  law,  and  so  he  hates  the  evil  and  loves 
only  the  good  in  all  his  creatures."     (pp.  130-132.) 

The  holiness  consists  in  God's  not  sinning,  and  in  his 
hating  evil.  And  again  a  confirmation  of  this  scoffing 
from  Holy  Scripture. 

"  (3)  Infinite  goodness.  Goodness  in  God  is  a  property 
by  which  he  is  always  ready  to  confer,  and  actually  does 
confer,  as  many  benefits  as  each  of  the  creatures  is  able 
to  reg^ive  by  its  nature  and  condition." 


CKITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY  147 

And  here  is  how  this  goodness  is  confirmed : 

"  Goodness  is  the  chief  cause  of  creation  and  provi- 
dence ;  God  has  existed  and  continued  in  bUss  since 
eternity,  without  having  any  need  of  any  one ;  but  only 
of  his  infinite  goodness  he  wanted  to  make  other  beings 
the  copartners  of  his  bliss,  and  so  he  gave  them  existence, 
adorned  them  with  various  perfections,  and  did  not  stop 
lavishing  upon  them  all  benefits  which  are  necessary  for 
existence  and  bliss."     (p.  138.) 

From  eternity,  that  is,  an  endless  number  of  years, 
God  lived  in  bliss  by  himself  and  with  all  his  all-wisdom 
had  not  thought  before  of  creating  the  world.  Thus 
goodness,  which  is  to  be  taken  in  the  sense  that  the  idea 
of  evil  cannot  be  connected  with  the  idea  of  God,  is 
mutilated  in  this  conception  and  debased  to  the  lowest, 
blasphemous  representation. 

"  (4)  Completest  truth  and  verity.  We  profess  God  as 
being  true  and  veracious  (aXrjOivos,  Tno-ros,  verax,  Jidelis), 
because  whatever  he  reveals  to  creatures  he  reveals  cor- 
rectly and  exactly,  and  in  particular,  no  matter  what 
promises  or  threats  he  utters,  he  always  carries  out  what 
he  says." 

True  to  whom  ?  The  idea  of  threat  and  punishment, 
the  idea  of  evil,  connected  with  God !  And  then  texts 
which  confirm  the  statement  that  God  cannot  lie ! 

"(5)  Infinite  justice.  Under  the  name  of  justice,  or 
truth  {StKaLoa-vvr],  justicia),  we  here  understand  the  property 
in  God  by  which  he  metes  out  the  due  to  all  moral  crea- 
tures, namely,  he  rewards  the  good  and  punishes  the  bad." 
(p.  140.) 

The  all-good  God  metes  out  eternal  punishment  to 
people  for  a  sin  committed  in  the  temporal  life.  And 
that  is  confirmed  by  texts : 

"  And  the  unrighteous  will  hear  the  heavy  doom  of  the 
unbiased  judge  :  Depart  from  me,  ye  cursed,  into  everlast- 
ing fire,  prepared  for  the  devH  and  his  angels  (Matt.  xxv. 


148  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

41).  Besides,  holy  Scripture  (h)  bears  testimony  to  the 
fact  that  the  curse  of  the  Lord  is  in  the  house  of  the 
wicked  (Pro  v.  iii.  33  ;  cf.  Pro  v.  xv.  25),  and  he  shall 
bring  upon  them  their  own  iniquity,  and  shall  cut  them 
off  in  their  own  wickedness  (Psalm  xciv.  23) ;  (c)  calls 
God  a  consuming  fire :  For  our  God  is  a  consuming  fire 
(Heb.  xii,  29  ;  Deut.  iv.  24),  and  {d)  in  human  fashion 
ascribes  to  him  anger  and  vengeance :  For  the  wrath  of 
God  is  revealed  from  heaven  against  all  ungodhness 
and  unrighteousness  of  men,  who  hold  the  truth  in  un- 
righteousness (Rom.  i.  18  ;  cf.  Exod.  xxxii.  10,  Num. 
xi.  10,  Psalms  ii.  5  and  Ixxxviii.  5-7,  16,  Ezek.  vii.  14). 
Vengeance  is  mine ;  I  will  repay,  saith  the  Lord  (Pom. 
xii.  19 ;  Heb.  x.  30 ;  Deut.  xxxii.  35).  Lord  God  of 
vengeance,  God  hath  not  shewn  himself  (Psalm  xciv. 
1)."     (p.  142.) 

This  apparent  contradiction  did  not  arrest  the  author, 
just  as  he  had  not  been  arrested  by  the  contradictions  in 
each  division  of  the  properties  of  God,  but  here  he  stopped, 
apparently  because  the  contradiction  had  been  observed 
long  ago  and  there  had  been  objections  raised,  and  the 
holy  fathers,  on  the  basis  of  whom  the  whole  book  is 
written,  had  expressed  themselves  in  regard  to  it.  Here 
is  what  the  holy  fathers  had  said  about  it : 

"  The  true  God  must  of  necessity  be  both  good  and 
just ;  his  goodness  is  a  just  goodness,  and  his  truth  a  just 
truth ;  he  remains  just  even  when  he  forgives  us  our  sins 
and  pardons  us;  he  remains  good  when  he  punishes  us 
for  our  sins,  for  he  punishes  us  as  a  father,  not  in 
anger  or  revenge,  but  in  order  to  mend  us,  for  our  own 
moral  advantage,  and  so  his  very  punishments  are  a  greater 
proof  of  his  paternal  goodness  toward  us  and  his  love 
than  of  his  truth." 

The  question  is  how  to  solve  the  contradiction  between 
goodness  and  justice.  How  can  a  good  God  punish  with 
eternal  fire  for  sins  ?     Either  he  is  not  just,  or  not  good. 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  149 

The  question  seems  to  be  both  simple  and  legitimate.  The 
author  makes  it  appear  that  he  is  answering  the  question 
when  he  quotes  the  authorities  of  Irenaais,  Tertullian, 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  Chrysostom,  Hilary,  Augustine. 
There  are  plenty  of  authorities,  but  what  have  they  said  ? 
They  have  said :  "  You  ask  whether  God  can  be  just  if 
there  is  eternal  torment  for  a  temporal  sin  ?  And  we 
answer  that  God  must  be  both  just  and  good.  His  good- 
ness is  just  goodness,  and  his  justice  is  good  justice." 
But  that  is  precisely  what  I  am  asking  :  How  is  this  ? 
How  can  a  good  and  just  God  punish  with  eternal  tor- 
ment for  a  temporal  sin  ?  And  you  say  that  he  punishes 
hke  a  father  for  our  moral  good,  and  that  his  punishments 
are  a  proof  of  his  goodness  and  love.  What  kind  of 
correction  and  love  is  tliis,  to  burn  for  ever  in  fire  for  a 
temporal  sin  ?  But  the  author  thinks  he  has  explained 
everything,  and  he  calmly  finishes  the  chapter : 

"  Every  sound  mind  must  acknowledge  the  completest 
justice  in  God.  Every  injustice  toward  others  can  arise 
in  us  only  from  two  causes,  —  from  ignorance  or  from  the 
error  of  our  mind  and  from  perversity  of  will.  But  in 
God  these  causes  cannot  take  place  :  God  is  an  omniscient 
and  most  holy  being ;  he  knows  all  the  most  hidden 
deeds  of  moral  beings  and  is  able  worthily  to  appreciate 
them  ;  he  loves  every  good  by  his  own  nature,  and  hates 
every  evil  also  by  his  nature.  Let  us  add  that  God  is 
at  the  same  time  an  almighty  being  who,  therefore,  has  all 
the  means  at  hand  in  order  to  recompense  others  according 
to  their  deserts."     (pp.  143  and  144.) 

I  have  quoted  this  merely  to  show  that  I  do  not  leave- 
out  a  thing.  That  is  all  which  is  used  to  solve  the  con- 
tradiction. The  disclosure  of  the  essence  of  God  in  him- 
self and  in  his  essential  properties  is  finished.  What  was 
there  in  it  ?  It  began  by  saying  that  God  was  incompre- 
hensible, but  the  statement  was  added  that  at  the  same 
time  he  was  comprehensible  in  part.     This  knowledge  in 


150  CKITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

part  is  disclosed  to  us  in  such  a  way  that  God  is  one,  and 
not  two  or  three,  that  is,  to  the  idea  of  God  there  is  added 
an  improper  concept  of  number  which,  by  the  first  defini- 
tion, is  not  applicable  to  him. 

Then  it  is  disclosed  to  us  that  in  the  partly  compre- 
hensible God  we  none  the  less  know  the  distinction  be- 
tween his  essence  and  his  properties.  The  definition  of 
the  essence  of  God  consisted  in  saying  that  he  was  a 
spirit,  that  is,  an  immaterial,  simple,  uncomplicated  being, 
which,  therefore,  excludes  all  subdivision.  But  imme- 
diately after  that  it  is  disclosed  that  we  know  the  proper- 
ties of  this  simple  essence  and  are  able  to  subdivide  it. 
About  the  number  of  these  properties  it  says  that  it  is 
infinite,  but  from  this  infinite  number  of  properties  of  the 
simple  essence,  the  spirit,  fourteen  properties  are  disclosed 
to  us.  After  that  we  are  suddenly  told  that  this  simple 
essence,  the  spirit,  differs  from  all  other  beings  and,  be- 
sides, has  mind  and  will  (nothing  is  said  about  what  is  to 
be  understood  by  the  words  "mind"  and  "will"  of  a 
simple  essence,  the  spirit),  and  on  the  basis  of  the  fact 
that  the  simple  essence  is  composed  of  mind  and  will, 
fourteen  properties  are  divided  into  three  classes :  (a) 
essential  properties  in  general.  The  essential  properties 
of  the  divine  essence  in  general  (I  change  nothing  and 
add  nothing)  are  again  subdivided  (aa)  into  essential 
properties  of  the  divine  essence  in  general  which  distin- 
guish it  in  general  (sic  !)  from  other  beings,  and  (bh)  into 
essential  properties  of  the  divine  essence  in  general  which 
distinguish  it  in  particular  from  other  beings,  and  thus  we 
receive  {aaa)  unlimitedness,  to  which  for  some  reason  all- 
perfection  is  unexpectedly  attached  by  a  sign  of  equality, 
(bhb)  self-existence,  {ccc)  independence,  (ddd)  immeasur- 
ableness  and  omnipresence  (again  unexpectedly  patched 
on  to  it),  (eee)  eternity,  {fff)  unchangeableness,  {ggg) 
almightiness.  The  properties  of  the  divine  mind  are  (a) 
omniscience,  (p)  the  liighest  wisdom ;  and  the  properties 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  151 

of  the  divine  will  are  («)  freedom,  (b)  holiness,  (c)  good- 
ness, (d)  truth,  (<;)  justice.  The  method  of  the  exposition 
is  the  same  as  in  the  previous  parts :  obscurity  of  expres- 
sions, contradictions,  clothed  in  words  which  elucidate 
nothing,  an  abasement  of  the  subject,  its  reduction  to  the 
lowest  sphere,  a  neglect  of  the  demands  of  reason,  and 
the  eternally  repeated  tendency  to  connect  in  an  external, 
verbal  way  the  most  diversified  judgments  about  God,  be- 
ginning with  Abraham  and  going  on  to  the  fathers  of  the 
church,  and  on  that  tradition  alone  to  base  all  the  argu- 
ments. But  in  this  part,  which  has  so  clearly  deviated 
from  the  path  of  common  sense  (from  the  very  first  state- 
ments about  God,  where  the  determination  of  the  divine 
properties  begin),  there  is  a  new  feature :  there  is  a  com- 
position of  words  which  apparently  have  absolutely  no 
meaning  for  the  author.  Obviously  the  words  have  been 
detached  entirely  from  the  thought  with  which  they  were 
connected,  and  no  longei"  evoke  any  ideas.  For  a  long 
time  I  made  terrible  efforts  to  understand  what  is  under- 
stood, for  example,  by  the  various  spiritual  essences,  by 
the  distinctions  of  the  properties  and  by  independence, 
by  the  divine  mind  and  will,  and  could  not  understand 
it,  and  convinced  myself  that  all  the  author  wanted  was  in 
an  external  way  to  connect  all  the  texts,  liut  that  even 
for  the  author  there  did  not  exist  a  rational  connection  in 
his  own  words. 

22.  Tliis  article  speaks  of  the  same  thing  that  invol- 
untarily presents  itself  to  one  when  the  properties  of  the 
incomprehensible  God  are  counted  out  to  him.  Every 
person  who  believes  in  God  cannot  help  feeling  the  blas- 
phemy of  these  subdivisions.  And  here  the  words  of  the 
fathers  of  the  church  express  precisely  what  each  believer 
feels,  namely,  that  God  is  incomprehensible  to  reason,  and 
that  all  those  words  and  epithets  which  we  have  applied 
to  God  have  no  clear  meaning  and  blend  into  one,  and 
that  the  conception  of  God  as  a  beginning  of  everything 


152  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

and  incomprehensible  to  reason,  is  simply  indivisible,  and 
that  to  divide  God  according  to  his  essence  and  properties 
is  the  same  as  destroying  the  idea  of  God. 

The  essence  and  the  essential  properties  of  God  are  not 
distinguished  or  divided  among  themselves  in  reality  :  on 
the  contrary,  they  are  one  in  God.  This  idea  necessarily 
results  from  those  passages  of  Holy  Scripture  where  God 
is  represented  as  the  purest  spirit  and  from  him  are  re- 
moved all  materiality,  corporeality,  and  complexity.  If 
the  essential  properties  in  God  were  indeed  separate  and 
distinct  from  his  essence  and  from  one  another,  he  would 
not  be  simple,  but  complex,  that  is,  he  would  be  composed 
of  his  essence  and  of  his  properties  which  are  distinct 
among  themselves.  Thus  reasoned  the  fathers  of  the 
church :  "  The  Deity  is  simple  and  uncompounded,"  says 
St.  John  Damascene,  "  for  what  is  composed  of  many  and 
various  things  is  composite.  If  we  shall  thus  take  uncre- 
atedness,  uncommencedness,  in'corporeahty,  immortahty, 
eternity,  goodness,  creative  powder,  and  similar  properties 
as  essential  distinctions  in  God  (otio-twSeto^opa?  inl  Oeov),  the 
Deity,  being  composed  of  so  many  properties,  will  not  be 
simple,  but  composite ;  but  it  would  be  extreme  infidelity 
to  affirm  that."  (p.  145.) 

Other  extracts  are  quoted  from  the  holy  fathers  in 
confirmation  of  this  idea,  so  that  one  only  wonders  what 
all  those  former  subdivisions  and  definitions  were  for. 
But  these  clear,  incontestable  arguments,  which  reecho  in 
the  heart  of  each  believer  in  God  as  full  of  truth,  are 
preceded  by  just  such  an  unexpected  discussion  as  was 
given  in  the  case  of  the  comprehensibility  and  incompre- 
hensibility of  God,  and  such  as  those  which  precede  the 
disclosure  of  each  dogma.  In  the  dogma  about  God 
the  statement  is  made  and  proved  that  God  is  incompre- 
hensible, and  then  there  is  a  pretence  at  a  proof  that  he 
is  comprehensible.  For  the  solution  of  this  contradiction 
there  is  invented  the  doctrine  about  comprehensibihty  in 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  153 

part.  Here  it  says  that  the  essence  and  the  essential 
properties  of  God  are  not  distinguished  or  divided,  and 
immediately  on  p.  147  it  says: 

"  The  essence  and  the  essential  properties  of  God,  with- 
out being  distinguished  or  divided  between  themselves  in 
fact,  are,  none  the  less,  distinguished  in  our  ratiocination, 
and  not  without  foundation  in  God  himself,  so  that  the 
concept  of  any  one  property  of  his  is  not  at  the  same  time 
a  concept  of  his  essence,  or  a  concept  of  any  other  property." 
(p.  147.) 

This  proposition,  in  the  author's  opinion,  necessarily 
results  from  Holy  Scripture,  and  there  are  quoted  the 
words  of  Basil  the  Great  that  "  our  distinctions  of  the  di- 
vine properties  are  not  merely  purely  subjective,  no,  their 
foundation  is  in  God  himself,  in  his  various  manifesta- 
tions, actions,  relations  to  himself,  such  as  the  creation 
and  providence,  though  iu  himself  God  is  one,  simple, 
uncompounded."     (p.  149.) 

Do  you  imagine  that  this  palpable  contradiction  of  the 
holy  fathers  is  accidentally  collated  ?  Do  you  think 
that  it  is  solved  in  any  way  ?  Not  in  the  least.  That  is 
precisely  what  the  author  needs,  and  in  that  lies  the  mean- 
ing of  this  22d  article.     It  begins  like  this  : 

"  This  question  has  been  raised  in  the  church  since  an- 
tiquity, but  especially  during  the  Middle  Ages,  both  in  the 
West  and  the  East,  and  in  solving  it  men  have  frequently 
fallen  into  extremes.  The  first  extreme  assumes  that 
between  the  essence  and  the  essential  properties  of  God, 
as  well  as  between  the  properties  themselves,  there  is  a 
real  difference  (tw  Trpay/xart,  realis),  so  that  the  properties 
form  in  God  something  distinct  from  the  essence  and  from 
each  other ;  the  other  extreme,  on  the  contrary,  affirms 
that  the  essence  and  all  the  essential  properties  of  God  are 
absolutely  identical  among  themselves,  and  that  they 
are  not  separated,  either  in  fact,  or  even  in  our  ratiocina- 
tion (cVtvoia  vorifjci,  cogitatione)."     {p.  144.) 


154  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

The  Orthodox  Church  teaches  that  both  propositions 
are  equally  remote  from  truth.  Which,  then,  is  nearer  to 
the  truth  ?  Nothing  is  said  about  that.  Two  opposite 
opinions  are  put  forth,  and  nothing  is  said  for  their  solu- 
tion. I  carefully  searched  in  all  live  pages,  and  there  is 
not  a  word  in  them  about  how  it  is  to  be  understood. 
Not  a  word.     The  conclusion  of  the  article  is  as  follows  : 

"  Remarkable  are  also  the  words  of  St.  Augustine  that 
refer  to  the  present  case  :  '  It  is  one  thing  to  be  God, 
another  to  be  Father.  Though  paternity  and  essence 
(in  God)  are  one,  it  is  impossible  to  say  that  the  Father 
by  his  paternity  is  God,  by  his  paternity  all-wise.  Such 
has  always  been  the  firm  conviction  of  our  fathers,  and 
they  rejected  the  Anomoeans  as  having  erred  far  beyond 
the  limits  of  the  faith,  because  these  heretics  destroyed  all 
distinction  between  the  essence  and  the  divine  properties.'  " 
(p.  150.) 

The  end  of  the  chapter.  But  are  the  Anomoeans  right, 
or  why  are  the  words  of  the  blessed  St.  Augustine  re- 
markable ?  that  makes  no  difference.  But  how  are  we  to 
understand  it  all  ?  The  words  of  St.  John  Damascene  are 
true,  as  the  author  himself  says.  How  are  they  to  be 
made  to  agree  with  the  contradictory  words  of  St.  Augus- 
tine ?  And  are  they  true  or  not  ?  The  author  does  not 
even  regard  it  as  necessary  to  answer  this,  and  concludes 
the  chapter. 

In  the  preceding  article  about  the  essence  and  the  four- 
teen divine  properties  I  was  struck-  by  the  trait  of  the  com- 
plete disassociation  of  ideas  and  the  manifest  play  with 
mere  contradictory  or  synonymous  words  in  complete  dark- 
ness ;  but  here  is  another  feature  of  an  extraordinary 
neglect,  offensive  not  only  to  my  reason,  but  also  to  my 
feelings,  which  is  shown  to  me  and  to  the  whole  congrega- 
tion which  is  listening  to  the  teachings  of  the  church. 

In  this  article  is  directly  expressed  a  contradiction,  and 
it   says  :  "  This  is  white,  and  this  black,"  and  you  can- 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY  155 

not  say  that  this  is  white,  nor  that  this  is  black,  for  the 
church  teaches  you  to  recognize  both,  that  is,  that  the  black 
is  white,  and  the  white  black,  so  that  here  is  expressed 
not  only  a  demand  that  you  should  believe  what  the 
church  says,  but  that  you  should  repeat  with  your  tongue 
what  it  says. 

After  that  comes  Article  23  :  The  moral  application  of 
the  dogma.  The  moral  application  of  the  first  dogma, 
of  the  dogma  of  the  divine  unity,  had  struck  me  only  by 
its  inconsistency.  The  moral  rules  which  were  taught 
on  the  basis  of  the  unity  of  God  were  apparently  not  de- 
duced from  it,  but  were  simply  patched  on  the  words, 
"  God  is  one,  we  must  live  in  oneness,"  and  so  forth. 
But  when  I  met  with  the  second  apphcation  and,  in  look- 
ing through  the  whole  work  for  all  the  moral  rules  which 
were  inevitably  applied  to  each  dogma,  recalled  what  had 
been  said  in  the  Introduction,  that  the  dogmas  of  faith 
and  the  laws  of  morality  (p.  36)  had  inseparably  been 
revealed  by  God  to  men  and  were  inseparably  connected, 
I  understood  '^hat  these  applications  were  not  accidental, 
but  very  important,  as  showing  ♦^he  meaning  of  the  dog- 
mas for  the  saving  Hfe,  and  so  I  turned  my  close  attention 
to  them.  Here  is  the  application  of  the  dogma  about  the 
essence  and  the  properties  of  God  : 

"  (1)  God  by  his  essence  is  a  spirit,  and,  by  the  chief 
property  of  the  essence  which  embraces  all  the  others,  he 
is  an  unKmited  spirit,  that  is,  most  perfect,  highest,  all- 
glorious.  From  this  (a)  we  learn,  first  of  all,  to  honour 
and  love  God,  for  whom  shall  we  honour  and  whom  love, 
if  not  the  most  perfect,  when  every  perfection  naturally 
evokes  these  feeUngs  in  us  ?  The  love  of  God,  united 
with  respect,  forms  the  foundation  of  all  our  obligations 
toward  him  (Matt.  xxii.  37)  ;  (6)  we  learn  at  the  same  time 
that  our  love  of  God  and  our  honouring  of  God  must  be  (aa) 
sincerest,  spiritual :  God  is  a  Spirit :  and  they  that  worship 
him  must  worship  hini  in  spirit  and  in  truth,  says  the 


156  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

Saviour  (John  iv.  24)  ;  every  external  worship  can  have  a 
value  only  when  it  is  an  expression  of  something  inward, 
otherwise  it  displeases  God  (Is.  i.  11-15),  and  the  sacri- 
fices of  God  are  a  broken  spirit,  according  to  the  words 
of  the  Prophet  (Psalm  li.  17);  (bb)  highest  and  fullest, 
because  in  his  perfections  God  infinitely  surpasses  all  other 
beings  to  whom  we  are  able  to  feel  respect  and  love  ;  con- 
sequently, him  above  all  else  must  we  love  with  all  our 
heart,  and  with  all  our  soul,  and  with  all  our  mind,  and 
with  all  our  strength  (Mark  xii.  30) ;  (cc)  most  pro- 
foundly reverential :  if  even  the  seraphim,  who  in  heaven 
surround  the  throne  of  God  the  All-holder,  unable  to 
endure  the  grandeur  of  his  glory,  cover  their  faces  when 
they  cry  unto  one  another,  Holy,  holy,  holy,  is  the  Lord  of 
hosts  (Is.  vi.  3),  then  with  what  trepidation  of  awe  ought 
we,  the  lowest  and  weakest  of  his  spiritual  creatures,  to 
serve  him  (Psalm  ii.  11)  ? 

"  (c)  Let  us  learn  to  glorify  God  with  our  heart  and  our 
mouth,  with  our  mind  and  all  our  life,  remembering  the 
words  of  the  Psalmist :  Give  unto  the  Lord  the  glory  due 
unto  liis  name :  bring  an  offering,  and  come  into  his 
courts  (Psalm  xcv.  8  ;  cxliv.  3),  and  the  words  of  the  Sa- 
viour :  Let  your  light  so  shine  before  men,  that  they  may 
see  your  good  works,  and  glorify  your  Father  which  is  in 
heaven  (Matt.  v.  16). 

"  (d)  Let  us  learn,  at  last,  to  turn  to  God  as  our  highest 
good,  and  in  him  alone  look  for  our  fullest  consolation, 
repeating  with  David  :  Whom  have  I  in  heaven  but  thee  ? 
and  there  is  none  upon  earth  that  I  desire  beside  thee. 
My  flesh  and  my  heart  faileth :  but  God  is  the  strength 
of  my  heart,  and  my  portion  for  ever  (Psalm  Ixxiii.  25, 
26).  However  profound  the  thirst  of  our  mind  may  be  in 
its  search  after  truth,  God  is  the  highest  truth ;  however 
fiery  the  striving  of  our  will  may  be  toward  the  good,  God 
is  the  most  perfect  good ;  however  insatiable  the  love  of 
our  lieart  may  be  for  happiness   and   bliss,   God  is   the 


CRITIQUE    OK   DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  157 

highest  and  intermiuable  bhss.  Where,  then,  if  not  in 
him,  shall  we  be  able  to  find  a  full  gratification  for  all  the 
high  needs  of  our  spirit  ? 

"  (2)  Eeflectiug,  in  particular,  on  the  separate  proper- 
ties of  the  divine  essence,  which  distinguish  God  from  his 
creatures,  we  can  draw  from  them  new  lessons  for  our- 
selves. And  (a)  if  God  alone  is  self -existent,  that  is,  is  in 
no  way  under  any  obligations  to  any  one,  while  all  the 
other  beings,  consequently  we,  too,  are  under  obligations 
to  him,  we  must  {aa)  constantly  humble  ourselves  before 
him,  according  to  the  words  of  Scripture,  What  hast  tliou 
that  thou  didst  not  receive  ?  now  if  thou  didst  receive 
it,  why  dost  thou  glory,  as  if  thou  hadst  not  received  it  ? 
(1  Cor.  iv.  7)  ;  and  (hb)  constantly  thank  him :  for  in 
him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being  (Acts  xvii. 
28).  (h)  If  he  alone  is  independent  and  all-satisfied,  and 
so  does  not  demand  our  goodness  (Psalm  xvi.  2),  but,  on 
the  contrary,  gives  to  all  life  and  breath,  and  all  things 
(Acts  xvii.  25),  we  must  (aa)  experience  within  us  a  feel- 
ing of  the  fullest  dependence  on  him  and  of  the  most 
complete  submission  to  him,  and  (hb)  in  bringing  him  gifts 
or  sacrifices  not  imagine  that  we  are  obliging  the  all- 
satisfied  God  in  this  manner,  since  all  which  we  have  is 
his  property,  (c)  The  confidence  that  we  are  always 
before  the  face  of  the  omnipresent  God,  no  matter  where 
we  may  be,  (aa)  naturally  inclines  us  to  act  before  him 
with  the  greatest  circumspection  and  reverence ;  (bb)  can 
keep  us  from  sins,  as  it  once  kept  Joseph  from  sinning 
(Gen.  xxxix.  9) ;  (cc)  can  encourage  and  console  us  in 
all  perils,  as  it  consoled  David,  who  said  about  himself :  I 
have  set  the  Lord  always  before  me ;  because  he  is  at  my 
right  hand,  I  shall  not  be  moved  (Psalm  xvi.  8) ;  (dd) 
can  incite  us  to  invoke,  glorify,  and  thank  the  Lord  in 
every  place  (John  iv.  21-24). 

"  (d)  Keeping  in  mind  that  God  alone  is  eternal,  while 
everything  else  which  surrounds  us  on  earth  is  temporal 


158  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

and  vanisliiug,  we  learn  (««)  not  to  cleave  with  the  soul 
to  perishable  possessions,  but  to  seek  the  one,  imperishable 
possession  in  God  (Matt.  vi.  19,  20) ;  (bh)  not  to  put  our 
trust  in  princes,  nor  in  the  sons  of  man,  who  may  die  any 
moment  and  leave  us  without  a  support  (Psalm  cxlvi. 
3-5),  but  to  put  our  trust  in  him  who  alone  has  immor- 
tality (1  Tim.  vi.  1 6)  and  will  never  abandon  us. 

"(e)  The  thought  of  God's  complete  unchangeabihty 
{act)  can  still  more  mcite  us  to  put  this  exclusive  trust 
in  God,  for  men  in  general  are  fickle,  the  favour  of  the 
great  and  mighty  of  the  earth  is  easily  shaken  and  passes, 
the  very  love  of  our  relatives  and  friends  frequently  be- 
trays us,  w^hereas  God  alone  is  always  the  same  and 
unchangeable;  (W)  can  at  the  same  time  incite  us  to 
imitate  the  unchangeableness  of  God  in  a  moral  sense, 
that  is,  to  be  as  firm  and  constant  as  possible  in  all  the 
honourable  pursuits  of  our  spirit,  and  in  our  unwavering 
march  along  the  path  of  virtue  and  salvation. 

"(/)  The  live  faith  in  almighty  God  teaches  us  {aa) 
to  implore  his  aid  and  blessing  in  all  our  undertakings : 
except  the  Lord  keep  the  city,  the  watchman  waketh  but 
in  vain  (Psalm  cxxvii.  1) ;  (bh)  not  to  be  afraid  of  any- 
thing and  not  to  lose  courage  amidst  the  greatest  dangers, 
so  long  as  we  are  doing  what  pleases  him  and  thus  attract 
his  good-will :  if  God  be  for  us,  who  can  be  against  us  ? 
(Eom.  viii.  31);  but  {cc)  to  fear  him  and  tremble  before 
him,  if  we  do  what  displeases  him :  he  is  able  to  destroy 
not  only  our  body,  but  also  our  soul  in  hell  (Matt.  x.  28). 
"  (3)  If  we  turn  our  attention  to  the  properties  of  the 
divine    mind,    we   shall  find    even  here   many   edifying 
things  for  ourselves,     {a)  God  is  omniscient :  what  con- 
solation and  encouragement  for  the  righteous  man  !     Let 
people  who  do  not  know  his  intentions  and  are  not  able 
to  appreciate  his  actions,  insult,  and  even  persecute  him, 
he  is  rewarded  by  the  knowledge  that  God  himself  clearly 
sees  his  soul  with  all  its  thoughts  and  wishes,  knows  all 


CRITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  159 

his  deeds  in  the  bloody  battle  with  the  enemies  of  salva- 
tion, knows  his  intentional  privations  and  innocent  suffer- 
ing, knows  every  sigh  and  every  tear  of  his  amidst  heavy 
temptation !  No  matter  how  hypocritical  he  may  be  be- 
fore men,  how  nmch  he  may  try  to  conceal  his  criminal 
intentions,  in  what  darkness  he  may  be  committing  his 
lawlessness,  he  cannot  help  confessing  that  there  is  a 
being  from  whom  it  is  impossible  to  conceal  himself,  be- 
fore whom  everything  is  naked  and  open  (Heb.  iv.  13), 
and  that  it  is  possible  to  deceive  men,  but  never  God. 
(6)  God  is  infinitely  wise ;  and  thus  (aa)  let  not  our 
mind  and  soul  be  dejected  if  in  social  life  or  in  Nature  we 
shall  see  any  phenomena  which  seem  to  threaten  a  univer- 
sal ruin  and  destruction,  for  all  that  is  done  or  omitted  by 
the  unsearchable  fate  of  the  highest  wisdom ;  (hh)  let  us 
not  be  faint  of  heart  or  murmur  against  God  if  we  our- 
selves have  occasion  to  be  in  straitened  circumstances,  but 
let  us  rather  give  ourselves  altogether  to  his  holy  will, 
believing  that  he  knows  better  than  we  what  is  useful  and 
what  harmful  to  us;  (cc)  let  us  learn  according  to  our 
strength  to  imitate  his  highest  wisdom,  tending  all  the 
time  toward  that  supreme  aim,  which  he  has  set  for  us, 
and  selecting  for  ourselves  those  most  reliable  means, 
which  he  himself  has  outlined  for  us  in  his  revelation. 

"  (4)  Finally,  each  of  the  properties  of  the  divine  will 
either  only  offers  us  a  model  for  imitation,  or  at  the  same 
time  also  imparts  certain  other  moral  lessons,  (a)  God  is 
called  supremely  free,  because  he  always  selects  only 
what  is  good,  and  this  he  does  without  any  external  pres- 
sure or  incitement ;  it  is  in  this,  then,  that  our  true  free- 
dom ought  to  consist!  In  the  possibility  and  freely 
acquired  habit  of  doing  only  what  is  good,  only  because 
it  is  good,  and  not  in  the  arbitrary  will  of  doing  good  and 
evil,  as  people  generally  think,  and  still  less  in  the  arbi- 
trary will  of  doing  only  what  is  bad :  for  whosoever  com- 
mitteth  sin  is  the  servant  of  sin,  says  our  Saviour  (John 


160  CKITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

viii.  34),  and,  committiug  evil,  we  every  time  lose  part  of 
our  freedom,  more  and  more  submitting  to  our  passions 
and  impure  strivings,  over  which  we  ought  to  rule,  (b) 
God  is  supremely  holy  and  has  commanded  to  us :  ye 
shall  sanctify  yourselves,  and  ye  shall  be  holy ;  for  1  am 
holy,  the  Lord  your  God  (Lev.  xi.  44).  Without  this  con- 
dition we  can  never  become  worthy  of  the  most  bhssful 
union  with  the  Lord :  for  what  communion  hath  light 
with  darkness  ?  (2  Cor.  vi.  14) ;  nor  shall  we  ever  be 
worthy  of  seeing  God :  for  only  the  pure  in  heart  shall 
see  God  (Matt.  v.  8).  (c)  God  is  infinitely  good  to  all 
his  creatures  and  to  us  in  particular ;  this  (aa)  teaches  us 
to  thank  him  for  all  his  benefits,  and  for  his  paternal  love 
to  repay  him  with  filial  love  :  we  love  him,  because  he 
first  loved  us  (1  John  iv.  19)." 

Not  only  is  there  no  sense  in  all  that,  but  there  is  not 
even  any  connection  except  what  the  French  call  d,  pro- 
pos.  Indeed,  what  moral  application  can  there  be  from 
the  fact  that  God  is  one  and  immeasurable,  and  a  spirit, 
and  trine  ?  What  is  remarkable  is  not  that  the  exposi- 
tion of  this  moral  application  of  the  dogma  is  written  dis- 
connectedly and  badly,  but  that  an  application  has  been 
invented  for  a  dogma  that  can  have  no  applications  at  all. 
Involuntarily  it  occurs  to  me  :  why  should  I  know  these 
incomprehensible,  most  contradictory  dogmas,  since  from 
their  knowledge  absolutely  nothing  can  result  ? 


Chapter  II.     Of  God  trine  in  persons. 

Before  proceeding  to  the  disclosure  of  the  dogma 
itself,  I  involuntarily  stop  at  the  words  "  in  persons," 
"  God's  person."  I  have  read  and  studied  the  exposition 
of  the  dogmas  about  the  essence  of  God.  There  was  no 
definition  there  of  the  word  person,  or  hypostasis,  which 
was  used  in  the  definition  of  the  Trinity.  Only  in  the 
passage  where  the  authropomorphists  were  refuted  it  said 
that  under  the  divine  person  we  must  understand  "  the 
manifestation  of  God  in  his  works."  But  that  apparently 
has  no  reference  to  the  Trinity.  Maybe  the  definition  of 
this  word,  so  necessary  for  the  comprehension  of  the 
Trinity,  will  become  clear  from  the  exposition  itself.  I 
proceed  to  read.     Here  is  the  introduction : 

"  The  truths  about  God,  one  in  essence,  and  about  his 

essential    attributes,    so   far    expounded    by    us,   do    not 

embrace  the  whole  Christian  teaching  about  God.      In 

acknowledging  God  to  be  one,  we  have  not  yet  the  right 

to  call  o\irselves  Christians  :  the  one  God  is  professed  also 

by  the  Jews,  who  did  not  accept  Christ  the  Saviour  as  the 

Messiah,  and  who  reject  Christianity ;  he  is  also  professed 

by  the  Mohammedans  and  has  been  admitted  by  many 

old   and   new  heretics  in  the  lap  of    Christianity  itself. 

The  full  teaching  about   God,  wliich   it  is  necessary  to 

keep  in  tlie  heart    and  profess   with    the   lips,  in  order 

worthily  to  bear  the  name  of  Christian,  consists  in  this, 

that   God   is   one  and   trine,   one   in   substance,  trine  in 

persons."     (p.  156.) 

161 


162  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

What  does  that  meau  ?  All  the  attributes  of  God,  as 
given  in  the  division  about  the  essence  of  God,  such  as 
unUiniteduess,  immeiisurableness,  and  the  others,  exclude 
the  concept  of  person.  The  fact  that  God  is  a  spirit  is 
still  less  in  agreement  with  persons.  What,  then,  does 
"  in  persons  "  mean  ?  There  is  no  answer  to  this,  and  the 
exposition  goes  on. 

"  This  doctrine  forms  the  radical,  essentially  Christian 
dogma :  directly  upon  it  are  based,  and,  consequently, 
with  its  refutal  are  inevitably  refuted,  the  dogmas  about 
our  Redeemer,  the  Lord  Jesus,  about  our  Sanctifier  the  All- 
holy  Ghost,  and  after  that,  more  or  less  all  the  dogmas 
which  refer  to  the  house-management  of  our  salvation. 
And  in  professing  God  as  one  in  essence  and  trine  in 
persons  —  "     (p.  168.) 

In  essence  God  is  one,  and  God,  it  was  said  in  the 
precediug,  is  a  spirit.  In  spite  of  the  essence,  it  was  said 
that  God  had  fourteen  attributes.  All  the  attributes  ex- 
clude the  concept  of  person.  What  then  is  "  in  persons  "  ? 
There  must,  then,  be  still  a  third  division.  First  it  was 
(1)  according  to  the  essence  and  (2)  according  to  the 
attributes.  Now  a  third  division  is  added  :  according  to 
persons.  On  what  is  this  division  based  ?  There  is  no 
answer,  and  the  exposition  goes  on  : 

"  By  professing  in  this  manner  we  differ  not  only  from 
the  pagans  and  certain  heretics,  who  assumed  many  or 
two  gods,  but  also  from  the  Jews,  and  from  the  Moham- 
medans, and  from  all  heretics,  who  have  recognized  the 
one  God  only." 

What  do  I  care  from  whom  I  differ  ?  The  less  I  differ 
from  other  people,  the  better  it  is  for  me.  What  is  a 
person  ?  There  is  no  answer,  and  the  exposition  is 
continued  : 

"  But  being  the  most  important  of  all  the  Christian 
dogmas,  the  dogma  about  the  Most  Holy  Trinity  is  at  the 
same  time  the  most  incomprehensible." 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC!    THEOLOUY  163 

That  is  the  very  reason  why  I  thust  so  mucli,  if  not  for 
an  explanation,  at  least  for  an  expression  whicli  would  be 
couiprehensible.  If  it  is  entirely  incomprehensible,  there 
can  be  no  answer. 

"  We  saw  a  number  of  incomprehensible  things  when  we 
expounded  the  doctrine  about  God  one  in  essence  and 
about  his  essential  attributes,  especially  about  his  seK- 
existence,  eternity,  omnipresence."     (p.  167.) 

There  was  nothing  incomprehensible  about  that.  All 
those  were  expressions  from  various  sides  of  the  first  con- 
cept about  the  existence  of  God,  —  a  concept  which  is 
familiar  to  every  believer  in  God.  These  expressions  were 
for  the  most  part  incorrectly  used,  but  there  was  nothing 
incomprehensible  in  them. 

"  Many  incomprehensible  things  shall  we  also  see  later 
on,  in  disclosing  the  dogma  of  the  incarnation  and  person 
of  our  Saviour,  about  his  death  on  the  cross,  about  the 
ever-virginity  of  the  Mother  of  God,  about  the  action  of 
grace  upon  us,  and  so  on.  But  the  mystery  of  Christian 
mysteries  is  indisputably  the  dogma  about  the  Most  Holy 
Trinity  :  just  as  tliere  are  three  persons  in  one  God,  so 
the  Father  is  God,  and  the  Son  is  God,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost  is  God,  however  not  three  Gods,  but  one  God,  — 
all  this  surpasses  all  understanding."     (p.  157.) 

That  is  precisely  what  I  want  to  know.  A  father  of 
the  church  says : 

"  What  manner  of  reasoning,  what  power  and  might 
of  the  intellect,  what  vivacity  of  the  mind  and  perspi- 
cacity of  imagination  will  show  me  — '  How  does  the 
Trinity  exist  ? '  And  in  another  place  :  '  However,  what 
it  is,  is  unspeakable ;  no  tongue  of  the  angels,  much  less 
of  men,  can  explain  it.' "  (p.  157.) 

The  Trinity  is  God.  What  is  God  and  how  does  he 
exist  ?  that  surpasses  my  imagination.  But  if  the  es- 
sence of  God  surpasses  my  understanding,  I  can  know 
nothing  about  the  essence  of  God.     But  if  we  know  that 


164  CKITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

he  is  the  Trinity,  it  is  necessary  to  say  what  we  under- 
stand by  this  appellation.  What  do  these  words  mean  in 
relation  to  God  ?  So  far  there  have  been  no  explanations 
of  these  words,  and  the  exposition  is  continued : 

"  So  this  is  the  reason  why  the  heretics  who  have  tried 
to  explain  the  truths  of  religion  with  their  own  intellect 
have  stumbled  over  the  mystery  of  the  Most  Holy  Trinity 
more  than  over  any  other  dogma.  So,  if  at  all  anywhere, 
we  must  here  more  especially  stick  closely  to  the  positive 
doctrine  of  the  church,  which  has  guarded  and  defended 
this  dogma  against  all  heretical  opinions,  and  which  has 
expounded  it  for  the  guidance  of  the  Orthodox  with  the 
greatest  possible  precision."  (pp.  157  and  158.) 

It  is  precisely  this  exposition  that  I  am  in  search  of, 
that  is,  I  want  to  know  what  is  meant  by  God  one  and 
three.  For,  if  I  say  that  I  believe,  mthout  understand- 
ing, and  if  any  one  else  says  that  he  believes  that  God  is 
one  and  three,  we  are  lying,  for  it  is  impossible  to  believe 
what  we  do  not  understand.  It  is  possible  to  repeat 
with  the  tongue,  but  it  is  not  possible  to  believe  words 
which  not  merely  have  no  meaning,  but  directly  violate 
sound  reason.  Here  is  the  way  the  Orthodox  Church 
expounds  this  doctrine  with  precision  : 

"  (1)  In  the  symbol  of  St.  Gregory  Tliaumaturgus,  the 
Bishop  of  Neoctesaria :  '  There  is  one  God,  Father  of  the 
living  Word,  of  wisdom  and  self-existing  force,  and  of 
the  eternal  form  :  the  perfect  progenitor  of  the  perfect. 
Father  of  the  only-begotten  Son.  There  is  one  God,  one 
from  one,  God  from  God,  form  and  expression  of  the 
Deity,  active  word,  wisdom,  containing  the  composition 
of  all,  and  force  building  the  whole  creation  ;  true  Son  of 
the  true  Father,  the  unseen  of  the  unseen,  the  incorrupt- 
ible of  the  incorruptible,  the  immortal  of  the  immortal, 
the  eternal  of  the  eternal.  And  there  is  one  Holy  Ghost, 
issuing  from  God,  having  appeared  through  the  Son,  that 
is,  to  men ;  life,  in  which  is  the  cause  of  the  living ;  holy 


CRITIQUE    OP   DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY  165 

source ;  holiness  offering  sanctification.  To  him  appears 
God  the  Father,  who  is  above  all  and  in  all,  and  God  the 
Son,  who  is  through  all.  Trinity,  perfect  in  glory  and 
eternity,  indivisible  and  inseparable  in  dominion.  And 
so  there  is  in  the  Trinity  neither  created,  nor  ancillary, 
nor  additive,  which  has  not  been  before,  or  which  will 
come  later.  The  Father  has  never  been  without  the  vSon, 
nor  the  Son  without  'the  Holy  Ghost ;  but  the  Trinity 
is  invariable,  unchangeable,  and  always  one  and  the 
same.' 

"  (2)  In  the  Nicseo-Constantinopolitan  symbol :  *  I 
believe  in  one  God  the  Father  —  and  in  one  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  the  only-begotten,  born  from  the 
Father  before  all  ages,  light  of  light,  true  God  of  true 
God,  born,  uncreated,  of  one  substance  with  the  Father  — 
and  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  hfe-creating  Lord,  who  pro- 
ceedeth  from  the  Father  ;  who  with  the  Father  and  the 
Son  is  worshipped  and  glorified.' 

"  (3)  In  the  symbol  which  is  known  under  the  name 
of  that  of  St.  Athanasius  of  Alexandria :  '  This  is  the 
Catholic  creed :  Let  us  worship  the  one  God  in  the 
Trinity  and  the  Trinity  in  the  One,  neither  blending 
the  hypostases,  nor  separating  the  essence.  For  different 
is  the  hypostasis  of  the  Father,  different  that  of  the  Son, 
and  different  that  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  But  that  of  the 
Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  one 
Deity,  an  equal  glory,  a  coeval  grandeur.  As  the  Father, 
so  is  the  Son,  and  so  is  the  Holy  Ghost  —  Thus :  God 
is  the  Father,  God  is  the  Son,  and  God  is  the  Holy 
Ghost ;  and  yet  not  three  Gods,  but  one  God  —  God  is 
not  created  by  any  one,  nor  bom.  The  Son  was  not  cre- 
ated by  the  Father  himself,  nor  made,  nor  born,  nor 
issued  from  him  —  And  in  this  Trinity  nothing  is  first 
or  last ;  nothing  more  or  less  ;  but  the  three  hypostases 
are  complete,  coeval  with  each  other  and  equal.' "  (pp. 
158  and  159.) 


16t>  CRITIQi/E    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

That  is  the  exposition  with  the  greatest  possible  pre- 
cision !     I  read  farther  down  : 

"  Examining  more  closely  this  doctrine  of  the  Ortho- 
dox Church  about  the  Most  Holy  Trinity,  we  cannot 
help  observing  that  it  is  composed  of  three  proposi- 
tions :  one  general  and  two  particular,  which  directly 
result  from  the  general  and  disclose  it  through  them- 
selves. 

"  The  general  proposition  is  in  God,  one  in  substance, 
three  persons  or  hypostases :  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the 
Holy  Ghost.  The  particular  propositions :  the  first,  -^  as 
it  is  one  in  essence,  so  three  persons  in  God  are  equal  to 
each  other  and  uni-existent ;  and  the  Father  is  God,  and 
the  Son  is  God,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  is  God,  not  three 
gods,  but  one  God.  The  second :  however,  as  three 
persons  they  are  different  among  themselves  by  their 
personal  attributes  :  the  Father  is  not  born  from  any  one ; 
the  Son  is  born  from  the  Father ;  the  Holy  Ghost  pro- 
ceeds from  the  Father."  (p.  159.) 

I  have  not  left  out  anything,  hoping  all  the  time  to 
find  an  explanation,  and  what  ?  The  author  not  only 
does  not  find  it  necessary  to  explain  what  is  said  here, 
but,  looking  attentively  at  it,  he  finds  here,  too,  subdivi- 
sions, and  he  proceeds,     (p.  161.) 

As  I  get  no  definition  not  only  of  the  persons  of  the 
Trinity,  but  even  of  the  word  "  person,"  though  there  is 
an  unnecessarily  detailed  statement  about  the  essence 
and  the  attributes  of  God,  I  involuntarily  begin  to  sus- 
pect that  the  author  and  the  church  have  no  definition  of 
this  word,  and  so  speak  themselves  not  knowing  what. 
My  suspicion  is  confirmed  by  the  following  article.  As 
always,  after  the  exposition  of  an  unintelligible  dogma 
there  follows  tlie  exposition  of  the  dispute,  which  has  led 
to  this  exposition.     And  here  it  says  : 

"  That  God  is  one  in  substance  and  trine  in  persons, 
has  unchangeably  been    professed    by  the    holy  church 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  167 

from  the  very  beginning,  as  is  witnessed  by  its  symbols 
and  other  incontrovertible  proofs." 

From  what  beginning  remains  unknown.  But  from 
common  sense,  from  the  historical  data,  even  from  the 
exposition  .given  here  and  in  Art.  28  of  the  different 
opposing  opinions,  it  is  evident  that  there  was  no  such 
beginning,  and  that  the  dogma  was  formed  by  degrees. 
Then  follows  a  confirmation  of  the  fact  that  the  dogma 
was  not  formed  in  an  indefinite  "  very  beginning,"  but  at 
a  very  definite  historical  period  of  church  history. 

"  But  the  manner  of  expression  of  this  truth  in  the 
first  centuries  was  unequal  even  among  the  Orthodox 
teachers  of  the  faith.  Some  used  the  words  oio-La,  ^wts, 
substantia,  naticra,  in  order  to  signify  the  essence  or 
substance  of  God ;  others,  however  only  few  of  them  and 
rarely,  used  these  words  to  designate  the  divine  persons. 
Similarly,  certain  words,  iiTroo-Tacrts,  vTrap$i<;,  or  rponos  i-n-dp- 
lews,  designated  the  persons  in  God ;  others,  on  the  con- 
trary, designated  by  these  words  the  essence  of  God,  and 
for  the  designation  of  the  persons  used  the  words  irpoa-wTro^, 
persona.  The  difierent  use  of  the  word  '  hypostasis '  has 
even  led  to  considerable  disputes  in  the  East,  especially 
at  Antioch,  and  for  some  time  created  discord  between 
the  Eastern  and  the  Western  churches,  of  which  the  first 
taught  that  it  was  necessary  to  profess  three  hypostases 
in  God,  fearing  a  reproach  of  Sabellianism,  while  the 
others  affirmed  that  there  was  but  one  hypostasis  in  God, 
fearing  a  reproach  of  Arianism.  To  solve  the  misunder- 
standing a  council  was  called  in  Alexandria  (in  the  year 
362),  where,  together  with  St.  Athanasius  the  Great,  there 
were  present  bishops  from  Italy,  Arabia,  Egypt,  and  Libya. 
At  the  council,  the  representatives  of  both  parties  were 
heard,  and  it  turned  out  that  both  sides  believed  precisely 
ahke,  differing  only  in  words,  both  the  Orthodox  and  those 
who  said,  'In  God  there  is  one  essence  and  three  hypos- 
tases,' and  the  others  who  said,  '  In  God  is  one  hypostasis 


168  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

and  three  persons,'  for  the  first  used  the  word  'hypos- 
tasis '  instead  of  tt/doo-wttos,  persona,  while  the  latter  used 
it  instead  of  ovaia,  substantia,  essence,"  (pp.  160  and 
161.) 

Farther  on  it  says  that  if  at  first  the  words  ova-Ca  and 
uTToo-Tao-is  were  used  differently,  or  rather,  indifferently,  in 
the  sixth,  seventh,  and  the  following  centuries  the  concept 
appears  as  generally  accepted,  that  is  hypostasis  was  used 
in  reference  to  three,  ovaCa  to  one.  Thus,  if  I  had  the 
slightest  hope  of  getting  an  explanation  of  what  is  to  be 
understood  by  the  word  "  person,"  of  that  on  the  basis  of 
which  1=3,  I,  after  reading  this  exposition  about  the  use 
of  the  words  by  the  fathers,  came  to  understand  that  such 
a  definition  (which  is  inevitably  necessary  for  the  com- 
prehension of  the  Trinity)  does  not  exist  and  cannot  be ; 
the  fathers  used  words  without  ascribing  any  meaning  to 
them,  and  so  used  them  indiscriminately,  now  in  one,  and 
now  in  a  contrary  sense,  and  finally  agreed  not  on  the 
ideas,  but  on  the  words.  The  same  is  confirmed  by  what 
follows  : 

"  But  while  the  Orthodox  teachers  of  the  faith  differed 
only  in  words,  invariably  professing  one  God  in  the 
Trinity  and  the  Trinity  in  One,  the  heretics  perverted  —  " 
(p.  162.) 

That  is,  now  without  any  farther  explanation.  One  is 
equal  to  the  Trinity,  and  the  Trinity  is  equal  to  One. 
But  the  holy  fathers  professed : 

"  The  heretics  perverted  the  very  idea  of  the  dogma, 
some  of  them  denying  the  trinity  of  persons  in  God, 
while  others  admitted  three  Gods." 

Again  some  say  black,  and  others  say  white.  Both  are 
wrong,  but  we  say,  "  Black  is  white,  and  white  is  black." 
Why  is  it  so  ?  Why,  because  the  church  said  so,  that  is, 
the  tradition  of  those  men  who  believe  in  that  tradition. 
Here  is  the  idea  of  the  heretics  who  denied  the  Trinity : 

"  {a)  Even  during  the  life  of  the  apostles :  Simon  th^ 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY         169 

Magician  taught  that  the  Father,  the  Sou,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost  were  only  manifestations  and  forms  of  the  self- 
same person,  and  that  the  one  God,  in  the  capacity  of 
Father,  had  revealed  himself  to  the  Samaritans ;  in  the 
capacity  of  the  Son,  as  Christ,  to  the  Jews  ;  in  the  capacity 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  to  the  pagans ;  (h)  in  the  second  cen- 
tury, Praxeas  affirmed  that  one  and  the  same  God,  as 
concealed  in  himself,  was  the  Father,  but  as  having 
appeared  in  the  work  of  creation  and  later,  in  the  redemp- 
tion, was  the  Son  Christ ;  (c)  in  the  third  century,  Noetus, 
who  also  recognized  the  Father  and  Son  as  one  person, 
one  God,  who  had  become  incarnate  and  had  suffered 
torment  and  death ;  Sabellius,  who  had  taught  that  the 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  were  only  three 
names,  three  actions  (evepyeta)  of  one  and  the  same  person, 
God,  who  had  been  incarnate  and  had  suffered  death  for 
us ;  and  Paul  of  Samosata,  according  to  whose  words  the 
Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost  were  in  God,  as  mind  and  strength 
were  in  man ;  (d)  in  the  fourth  century,  Marcellus  of 
Ancyra  and  his  disciple  Photinus :  they  preached,  after 
Sabellius,  that  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost 
were  only  names  of  the  selfsame  person  in  God,  and  after 
Paul  of  Samosata,  that  the  Son,  or  the  Word,  was  the 
mind  of  God,  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  power  of  God." 
(pp.  162  and  163.) 

Here  is  the  conception  of  other  heretics : 

"  The  common  idea  of  all  these  was  that  although  the 
divine  persons,  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost, 
were  of  one  substance,  they  were  not  one  in  substance, 
and  that  they  had  one  nature,  but  had  it  each  separately, 
as,  for  the  example,  three  persons  of  the  human  race,  and 
so  were  three  Gods,  and  not  one  God."  (p.  163.) 

Without  having  the  question  answered  whether  the 
teaching  of  the  heretics  was  true  or  false,  I  am  unable  to 
say  that  I  understand  what  they  have  been  saying. 
Similarly,  without  entering  into  a  discussion  as  to  whether 


170  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

it  is  right  that  God  should  be  one  aud  three,  I  am  unable 
to  say  that  I  understand  what  it  means,  although  the 
dogma  is  expounded  in  all  its  fulness,  as  the  author  avers. 
In  all  its  fulness  the  dogma  is  expounded  as  follows : 

" '  Let  us  worship  the  one  God  in  the  Trinity  and  the 
Trinity  in  the  One,  neither  blending  the  hypostases, 
nor  separating  the  essence.'  Neither  blending  the  essence, 
that  is,  recognizing  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost  not  merely  as  three  names,  or  forms,  or  manifesta- 
tions of  the  selfsame  God,  as  the  heretics  have  represented 
him,  nor  as  three  attributes,  or  forces,  or  actions,  but  as 
three  independent  persons  of  the  Deity,  since  each  of 
them,  the  Father,  and  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  pos- 
sessing a  divine  mind  and  the  other  divine  attributes,  has 
his  own,  personal  properties,  '  for  one  is  the  hypostasis  of 
the  Father,  another,  of  the  Son,  and  still  another,  of  the 
Holy  Ghost.'  Nor  separating  the  essence,  that  is,  aftirm- 
ing  that  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  are  one 
in  essence,  exist  inseparably  one  in  the  other,  and,  differing 
from  each  other  only  in  their  personal  attributes,  have  an 
identity  of  mind,  will,  and  all  the  other  divine  attributes, 
—  not  at  all  as  there  exist  three  entities  of  any  class  of 
beings  among  the  creatures,  entities  that  have  one  nature. 
'  Among  the  creatures,'  let  us  speak  with  the  words  of  St. 
John  Damascene,  '  the  common  nature  of  the  entities  is 
perceived  only  by  the  mind,  for  the  entities  do  not  exist 
one  in  the  other,  but  each  separate  and  distinct,  that  is,  in 
itself,  and  each  has  much  to  distinguish  it  from  the  others. 
They  differ  in  place  aud  time,  in  disposition  of  the  will,  in 
firmness,  in  external  appearance  or  form,  in  habits,  in  tem- 
perament, in  worth,  in  the  manner  of  life,  and  in  the  other 
distinctive  properties,  but  most  of  all,  because  they  do  not 
exist  one  in  the  other,  but  each  exists  separately.  For 
this  reason  we  say :  two,  three,  many  men.  But  in 
the  holy,  transubstantial,  all-surpassing,  incomprehensible 
Trinity  we  see  something  different.     Here  the  universality 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  171 

and  unity  are  viewed  iu  fact  according  to  the  coeternality 
of  the  persons,  according  to  the  identity  of  the  essentiahty, 
activity,  and  will,  according  to  the  concord  of  definitions, 
according  to  the  identity  —  I  do  not  say  simiUtude,  but 
identity  —  of  power,  almightiuess,  and  goodness,  and  ac- 
cording to  the  one  tendency  of  motion  —  Each  of  the 
hypostases  has  a  unity  with  the  other,  not  less  than  with 
itself ;  that  is,  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost 
are  one  in  all  respects  but  ungeneratedness,  birth,  and 
derivation,  and  are  divided  only  in  our  ratiocination 
(eVtVota).  For  we  know  only  one  God,  and  only  iu  the 
properties  of  fatherhood,  sonhood,  and  derivation  do  we 
present  a  difference  —  In  the  uuhmited  Deity  we  cannot 
assume,  as  in  us,  spatial  distance,  because  the  hypostases 
exist  one  in  the  other,  but  in  such  a  way  that  they  are  not 
blended,  but  united,  according  to  the  words  of  the  Lord 
I  am  the  Father,  and  the  Father  in  me  (John  xiv.  11) 
nor  distinction  of  will,  definitions,  activities,  power,  or 
anything  else,  which  in  us  produce  a  real  and  complete 
division.  Therefore  we  recognize  the  Father,  the  Son, 
and  the  Holy  Ghost  not  as  three  Gods,  but  as  one  God  in 
the  Holy  Trinity.'  The  whole  incomprehensibility  of  the 
mystery  of  the  Most  Holy  Trinity  consists  precisely  in 
this,  that  the  three  independent  persons  of  the  Deity  are 
one  in  essence  and  entirely  inseparable  ;  if  they  existed 
separately  one  from  the  other,  like  three  entities  among 
the  creatures,  there  would  be  nothing  incomprehensible  in 
that.  '  The  Deity  is  one  and  three :  oh,  most  glorious 
transformation  ! '  What  is  united  in  essence  is  divided 
according  to  the  persons :  the  indivisible  is  divided,  what 
is  one  is  trebled :  that  is  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the 
living  Spirit,  preserving  all."     (pp.  164  and  165.) 

So  here  it  is,  all  the  doctrine,  all  the  God  -  revealed 
truth,  revealed  to  me  iu  all  its  fulness  for  the  sake  of  my 
salvation.  "  The  Deity  is  one  and  three.  Oh,  most 
glorious  transformation  ! "     The  exposition  ana  explana- 


172  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    TUEOLOGY 

tion  are  ended,  and  there  will  be  nothing  else.  And  this 
through  the  mouth  of  his  church  says  God  the  Father  to 
me,  his  son,  who  with  all  my  power  am  looking  for  truth 
and  salvation  !  To  my  entreaty  and  tears  of  despair  he 
replies  to  me :  "  The  indivisible  is  divided,  what  is  one  is 
trebled :  that  is  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  living  Spirit, 
preserving  all."  And  to  the  demands  of  my  reason,  which 
has  been  given  me  for  the  comprehension  of  God,  there  is 
no  other  answer.  I  cannot  say,  nor  can  any  one  else  say, 
that  I  have  comprehended  it,  and  so  I  cannot  say  that  I 
believe.  With  my  tongue  I  can  say  that  I  believe  that 
"  what  is  one  is  trebled.  Oh,  most  glorious  transforma- 
tion ! "  But  when  I  say  that,  I  am  a  liar  and  an  atheist, 
and  it  is  precisely  this  that  the  church  demands  of  me,  that 
is,  those  people  who  assert  that  they  believe  in  it.  But 
that  is  not  true :  they  do  not  believe  and  nobody  has  ever 
believed  it.  What  a  marvellous  phenomenon !  Chris- 
tianity will  soon  have  existed  for  a  thousand  years  in 
Russia.  For  a  thousand  years  the  })astors  have  been 
teaching  their  flocks  the  foundations  of  the  faith.  The 
foundation  of  the  faith  is  the  dogma  of  the  Trinity.  Ask 
a  peasant,  a  country  woman,  what  the  Trinity  is.  Out  of 
ten  hardly  one  will  answer  you.  It  cannot  be  said  that 
that  is  due  to  ignorance.  Ask  them  what  the  teaching  of 
Christ  consists  in.  Everybody  will  tell  you.  And  yet 
the  dogma  of  the  Trinity  is  not  complicated  or  long. 
Why,  then,  does  no  one  know  it  ?  Because  it  is  impos- 
sible to  know  what  makes  no  sense. 

Then  there  follow  proofs  that  these  truths,  that  is,  that 
God  is  a  Trinity,  have  been  revealed  by  God  to  all  men. 
The  proofs  are  divided  into  proofs  from  the  Old  and  the 
New  Testament.  In  the  Old  Testament,  which  forms 
the  teaching  of  the  Jews,  of  those  Jews  who  regard  the 
Trinity  as  the  greatest  blasphemy,  in  this  Old  Testament 
do  they  look  for  proofs  that  God  has  revealed  his  three- 
fold nature  to  men.     Here  are  these  proofs  from  the  Old 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  173 

Testament :  (1)  J^ecause  God  said,  "  Let  us  make,"  and 
not  "  Let  me  make :  "  that  was  so  because  he  spoke  with 
his  Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost,     (pp.  165,  166.) 

(2)  Because  he  said,  "  Adam,  one  of  us."  By  "  us  "  are 
meant  the  three :  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holv 
Ghost.  (3)  The  Bible  says:  "Let  us  confound  their 
language,"  and  not,  "  Let  me  confound ; "  consequently 
the  three  Gods  wanted  to  confound  it.  (4)  Because 
three  angels  came  to  Abraham,  —  those  were  the  Father, 
the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  who  came  to  see  Abraham, 
(pp.  169,  170.) 

(5)  Because  in  the  Book  of  Numbers  it  is  commanded 
that  the  word  "  Lord "  should  be  repeated  three  times. 
(6)  Because  in  David's  Psalter  it  says, "  Their  whole  host." 
■■'  Their  "  proves  the  Trinity.  (7)  A  proof  of  the  Trinity 
is  found  in  the  fact  that  Isaiah  said  three  times,  "  Holy, 
holy,  holy."  (8)  Proofs  are  found  in  all  those  passages 
of  the  Old  Testament  where  the  words  "  son  and  spirit " 
are  used  (Psalm  ii.  7;  Is.  xlviii.  16,  xi.  2,  Ixi.  1;  Job 
xxxiii.  4).  "  The  Lord  hath  said  unto  me.  Thou  art  my 
Son ;  this  day  have  I  Ijegottv^u  thee.  The  Lord  God,  and 
his  Spirit,  hath  sent  me,  and  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  shall 
rest  upon  him,"  and  so  forth.  Those  are  all  the  proofs 
from  the  Old  Testament.  I  have  not  omitted  a  single 
one.  The  author  sees  himself  that  the  proofs  are  poor, 
and  that  it  is  possible  to  find  as  many  or  even  more  proofs 
in  any  book  you  please,  and  so  he  thinks  it  necessary  to 
give  explanations.     Later  on  he  says : 

"  And  why  they  are  not  entirely  clear,  why  it  has 
pleased  God  to  disclose  in  the  Old  Testament  the  mystery 
of  the  Most  Holy  Trinity  only  to  a  certain  degree,  —  that 
is  concealed  in  the  plans  of  his  infinite  wisdom.  The 
godly  teachers  assumed  for  this  two  main  causes :  (a) 
one  lay  in  general  in  the  property  of  human  nature,  which 
was  hmited  and  impaired,  and  had  to  be  led  to  the  knowl- 
edge   of   the    highest    mysteries    of    revelation   only    by 


174:  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

degrees,  in  proportion  to  its  unfolding  and  strengthening, 
and  receptivity.  '  It  was  not  without  danger,'  reasons  St. 
Gregory  the  Divine,  '  before  professing  the  Divinity  to 
preach  clearly  the  Son,  and  before  the  Son  had  been 
called  (I  shall  express  myself  rather  boldly)  to  weigh  us 
down  with  the  sermon  about  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  to  sub- 
ject us  to  danger  and  make  us  lose  our  last  strength,  as  is 
the  case  with  people  who  are  burdened  with  food  which 
is  not  taken  in  measure,  or  who  direct  their  feeble  vision 
to  the  sun's  light ;  it  was  necessary  for  the  treble  light  to 
shine  on  the  illuminated  by  progressive  additions,  as  David 
says,  by  ascensions  (Psalm  Ixxxiv.  5),  progressions  from 
glory  to  glory,  and  advancements.'  (h)  Another  cause 
lay  in  the  quality  and  weaknesses  of  the  Jewish  nation, 
to  whom  the  Old  Testament  revelation  was  made :  *  God, 
in  his  infinite  wisdom,'  says  the  blessed  Theodoret,  '  was 
not  pleased  to  communicate  to  the  Jews  any  clear  idea  of 
the  Holy  Trinity,  in  order  that  they  might  not  find  in  this 
a  good  cause  for  worshipping  many  gods,  —  since  they 
had  been  so  prone  to  follow  the  Egyptian  abomination ; 
this  is  the  reason  why,  aft^r  the  Babylonian  captivity, 
when  the  Jews  felt  such  a  distinct  loathing  for  polythe- 
ism, we  meet  in  their  sacred  and  even  profane  books  many 
more  passages  than  before  in  which  the  divine  persons 
are  mentioned.'  We  must  observe,  at  last,  that,  in  pick- 
ing out  the  places  from  the  Old  Testament,  which  contain 
references  to  the  Most  Holy  Trinity,  we  had  in  view 
mainly  to  prove  that  the  teaching  about  this  mystery  is 
by  no  means  so  new  in  the  New  Testament,  as  the  later 
Jews  say.  and  that  the  pious  men  of  the  Old  Testament 
believed  in  the  same  tri-hypostatic  God,  in  tlie  Father, 
and  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  in  whom  we  be- 
lieve —  But  the  foundations  of  this  most  important  of 
all  the  Cliristian  dogmas  is,  beyond  doubt,  contained  in 
the  Books  (Art.  27 — b)  of  the  New  Testament."  (pp. 
173  and  174.) 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOfiMA-TIC    THEOLOGY  175 

Here  are  the  proofs  from  the  Xew  Testament.  The 
first  proof  the  Theology  finds  in  Christ's  conversation  with 
his  disciples:  Believe  me  that  I  am  in  the  Father,  and 
the  Father  in  me  (John  xiv.  11);  and  whatsoever  ye 
shall  ask  in  my  name,  that  will  I  do,  that  the  Father  may 
be  glorified  in  the  Son  (John  xiv.  13).  From  the  fact 
that  Jesus  Christ  calls  himself  the  Son  of  the  Father,  God, 
just  as  he  taught  all  men  to  call  themselves  the  sons  of 
God,  it  is  argued  that  Jesus  Christ  is  a  second  person 
of  God.  The  author  says  :  "  Here  evidently  two  persons 
of  the  Holy  Trinity,  the  Father  and  the  Son,  are  dis- 
tinguished."    (p.  175). 

The  second  proof  is  taken  from  the  passage  where  Jesus 
Christ  says  to  his  disciples.  If  ye  love  me,  keep  my  com- 
mandments. And  I  will  pray  the  Father,  he  shall  give 
you  another  Comforter,  that  he  may  abide  with  you  for 
ever ;  even  the  Spirit  of  truth ;  whom  the  world  cannot 
receive  (Jolin  xiv.  15-17).  The  last  verse  is  not  written 
out,  but  instead  of  it  the  continuation  is  taken  from  verse 
26  of  the  same  chapter :  but  the  Comforter,  which  is  the 
Holy  Ghost,  whom  the  Father  will  send  in  my  name,  he 
sbail  teach  you  all  things,  and  bring  all  things  to  your 
remembrance,  whatsoever  I  have  said  unto  you.  (p.  175.) 

From  this  it  is  concluded  : 

"  Here  all  three  persons  of  the  Most  Holy  Trinity  are 
distinguished,  namely,  as  persons  :  the  Son,  who  speaks 
of  himself:  I  will  pray,  —  the  Father:  I  will  pray  the 
Father,  —  the  Holy  Ghost,  who  is  called  another  Com- 
forter, consequently  distinct  from  the  Father ;  and  he 
will  be  sent  to  take  the  place  of  the  Son  with  the  apostles 
and  to  teach  them  everything ;  consequently,  he  is  just 
such  a  person  as  the  Son."     (p.  175.) 

Because  the  paraclete,  that  is,  the  comforter,  whom 
Christ  promises  his  disciples  after  his  death,  is  once 
during  that  conversation  called  the  Holy  Ghost,  it  is 
taken  as  a  proof  that  Christ  in  this  conversation  revealed 


176  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

the  mystery  of  the  Holy  Trinity.  No  attention  at  all 
is  paid  to  the  meaning  which  this  word  has  in  the  whole 
conversation,  for  even  there  the  comforter  is  called  the 
spirit  of  truth,  precisely  what  Christ  calls  his  teaching. 
I  go  away,  and  come  again  unto  you  (John  xiv.  28) ;  and 
I  in  you,  and  ye  in  me  (ib.  20) ;  if  a  man  love  me,  he 
will  keep  my  words :  and  my  father  will  love  him,  and 
we  will  come  unto  him,  and  make  our  abode  with  him 
(ib.  23) ;  I  will  not  leave  you  comfortless :  I  will  come 
to  you  (ib.  18);  for  he  shall  receive  the  Spirit  of  truth, 
and  shall  shew  it  unto  you  (John  xvi.  14). 

These  passages,  which  explain  the  whole  meaning  of 
the  conversation,  are  not  quoted,  but  the  word  "  holy," 
which  is  attached  as  an  epithet  to  the  spirit,  is  taken  as  a 
proof  that  here  Christ  spoke  of  the  third  person  of  the 
Trinity. 

Third  proof  :  But  when  the  Comforter  is  come,  whom  I 
will  send  unto  you  from  the  Father,  even  the  Spirit  of 
truth,  which  proceedeth  from  the  Father,  he  shall  testify 
of  me  (John  xv.  26).  These  words,  which  quite  clearly 
and  simply  say  that  when  I  shall  no  longer  be  alive,  and 
you  shall  be  permeated  by  the  spirit  of  truth,  by  that  truth 
which  I  have  taught  you,  and  which  proceeds  from  God, 
you  will  convince  yourself  of  the  truth  of  my  teaching,  — 
these  words  are  taken  as  a  new  proof  that  here  are  clearly 
distinguished,  as  in  the  previous  texts,  all  three  persons  of 
the  Holy  Trinity,  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost,  and  at  the  same  time  they  prove  the  consubstan- 
tiality  of  the  Holy  Ghost  with  God :  the  Spirit  of  truth 
which  proceedeth  from  the  Father. 

Fourth  proof:  The  words  of  John  (xvi.  15),  Therefore 
said  I,  that  the  Spirit  of  truth  shall  take  of  mine,  and 
shall  shew  it  unto  you,  —  the  words  which  clearly  speak 
of  the  spirit  of  the  teaching  as  given  by  Jesus  Christ 
serve  as  a  proof  that  here  mention  is  made  of  the  con- 
substantiality  with  the  Son, 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  177 

Fifth :  The  words,  I  came  out  from  God,  I  came  forth 
from  the  Father  (Johu  xvi.  27,  28),  which  cannot  signify 
anything  but  the  tihal  relation  of  any  man  to  God,  pre- 
cisely what  Jesus  Christ  has  preached,  are  taken  as  a 
proof  that  "  here  with  new  force  is  expressed  the  idea  of 
the  consubstautiality  of  the  Son  with  the  Father." 

In  the  second  series  of  proofs  from  the  New  Testament 
there  appear  first  the  concluding  words  of  St.  Matthew : 
Go  ye  therefore  and  teach  all  nations,  baptizing  them  in 
the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Sou,  and  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  (Matt,  xxviii.  19),  which  Jesus  Christ  said,  when 
he  appeared  to  his  disciples  after  the  resurrection. 

Without  saying  anything  about  the  meaning  and  the 
especial  character  in  general  of  the  whole  Gospel  after 
the  resurrection,  of  which  mention  will  be  made  later, 
these  words  serve  only  as  a  proof,  —  as  which  even  the 
church  understands  it,  —  that  in  accepting  Christianity  it 
was  necessary  to  acknowledge  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the 
Holy  Ghost,  as  the  foundations  of  the  teaching.  But 
from  this  does  not  follow  by  any  means  that  God  consists 
of  three  persons,  and  so  the  demands  that  the  words  "  the 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost "  be  used  can  by  no 
means  have  anything  in  common  with  the  arguments 
about  the  existence  of  God  in  three  persons. 

The  Theology  itself  admits  that  the  customary  formula 
of  baptism  can  by  no  means  be  regarded  as  a  proof  of  the 
Trinity  of  God,  and  so,  on  pp.  177  and  178,  it  explains 
why  it  is  necessary  to  understand  God  in  three  persons 
by  this.     The  explanations  are  as  follows : 

"  The  Saviour  had  before  explained  to  the  apostles  more 
than  once  that  under  the  appellation  of  the  Father  was  to 
be  understood  God  the  Father  who  had  sent  him  into  the 
world  (John  vi.  38-40  ;  vii.  16,  18,  28  ;  xi.  42,  and  else- 
where) and  who  is  another  that  beareth  witness  of  him 
(John  V.  32)  ;  under  the  name  of  the  Son  he  understood 
himself,  whom  the  apostles  indeed  professed  as  the  Son  of 


178  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

God  who  came  from  the  Father  (Matt.  xvi.  16  ;  John  xvi. 
30) ;  finally,  under  the  name  of  the  Holy  Ghost  he 
understood  another  Comforter  whom  he  had  promised  to 
send  to  them  in  his  place  from  the  Father  (John  xiv.  1 6  ; 
XV.  26)."     (p.  177.) 

No  proof  is  needed  that  Christ  understood  God  by  the 
Father,  for  that  is  admitted  by  everybody,  but  there  is  no 
proof,  and  there  can  be  none,  that  under  the  Son  he  meant 
himself,  and  under  the  Holy  Ghost  a  new  person  of  the 
Trinity.  As  a  proof  that  he  is  the  second  person  they 
adduce  the  passage  (Matt.  xvi.  16),  where  Peter  says  to 
Christ  what  Christ  has  always  said  about  all  other  people, 
that  is,  that  they  are  sons  of  God  ;  and  John  xvi.  30, 
where  his  disciples  say  to  him  what  he  teaches  all  other 
men.  In  proof  of  the  separate  existence  of  the  third 
person  there  are  repeated  the  same  verses  (John  xiv.  14 
and  XV.  26),  which  mean  something  different. 

Under  the  name  of  the  Comforter  Jesus  Christ  under- 
stands the  spirit  of  truth,  but  cannot  understand  any  third 
person.  The  clearest  proof  of  it  is  that  in  the  gospels 
there  are  no  proofs  ;  outside  of  these  passages,  which  prove 
nothing,  it  is  impossible  to  find  anything  else.  But  the 
Theology,  not  at  all  embarrassed  by  this,  regards  its  prop- 
osition as  proved,  and  says  : 

"  Consequently,  since  the  Saviour  did  not  consider  it 
necessary  to  add  a  new  explanation  of  the  above  men- 
tioned words  (Matt,  xxviii.  19),  he  in  the  present  case 
understood,  and  the  apostles  understood  with  liim,  nobody 
else  but  the  three  divine  persons  by  the  Father,  and  the 
Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost." 

In  the  third  series  there  is  one  last  and  chief  proof 
from  the  New  Testament ;  those  are  the  words  of  John  in 
his  first  Epistle,  v.  7 :  For  there  are  three  that  bear 
record  in  heaven,  the  Father,  the  Word,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost :  and  these  three  are  one.     The  Theology  says  : 

"  In  this  passage  there  is  expressed,  even  more  clearly 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC   TOEOLOGY  179 

than  before,  the  Trinity  of  the  persons  in  God  and  the 
unity  of  the  essence.  The  Trinity  of  the  persons  :  for 
the  Father,  the  Word,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  are  called  three 
witnesses  ;  consequently  they  are  distinct  from  each  other 
and  the  Word  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  mentioned  as  wit- 
nesses with  the  Father,  are  not  merely  two  of  his  attri- 
butes, or  forces,  or  actions,  but  just  such  persons  as  the 
Father.  The  unity  of  the  essence  :  for  if  the  Word  or 
the  Holy  Ghost  did  not  have  the  selfsame  divine  nature 
and  substance  with  the  Father,  but  a  lower,  created 
nature,  there  would  be  an  endless  distance  between  them 
and  the  Father,  and  it  would  not  be  possible  to  say  :  and 
these  three  are  one." 

But  unfortunately,  although  this  passage,  no  matter  how 
weak  it  is,  may  serve,  if  not  as  proof,  at  least  as  an  incen- 
tive to  the  assertion  that  God  is  one  and  three,  unfortu- 
nately not  all  agree  with  the  theologians.     It  says  : 

"  Unjust  are  those  who  wish  to  weaken  the  power  of 
this  passage,  by  asserting  that  the  three  celestial  witnesses, 
the  Father,  the  Word,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  are  represented 
as  one,  not  in  relation  to  their  essence,  but  only  in  relation 
to  their  unanimous  testimony,  just  like  the  three  terres- 
trial witnesses,  who  are  mentioned  in  the  following  verse : 
There  are  three  that  bear  witness  in  earth,  the  spirit,  and 
the  water,  and  the  blood  :  and  these  three  agree  in  one 
(1  Jolin  V.  8),  form  unquestionably  one,  not  by  their 
essence,  but  only  in  relation  to  the  testimony.  It  must  be 
remarked  that  (a)  the  apostle  himself  distinguishes  the 
unity  of  the  celestial  and  the  unity  of  the  terrestrial  wit- 
nesses ;  of  the  latter,  which  are  indeed  different  among 
themselves  or  different  in  their  essence,  he  expresses  him- 
self only  by  saying  :  and  these  three  agree  in  one  (^ai  oi 
rpct?  eis  TO  €v  elaiv),  that  is,  in  one,  in  relation  to  the  testi- 
mony ;  but  of  the  first  he  says  :  And  these  three  are  one 
[koi  ovtol  01  rpei?  h  eiVtv),  and  uot,  agree  in  one  ;  con- 
sequently '  are  one  '  is  a  great  deal  more  than  what  the 


180  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

terrestrial  witnesses  are,  —  they  are  one,  not  only  in  rela- 
tion to  the  testimony,  but  also  in  their  essence.  This 
is  the  more  certain  since  (h)  the  holy  apostle  himself  in 
the  next  verse  calls  the  testimony  of  the  celestial  wit- 
nesses, without  any  distinction,  the  witness  of  God :  If 
we  receive  the  witness  of  men,  the  witness  of  God  is 
greater  ;  consequently  he  assumes  that  the  three  witnesses 
of  heaven  are  one,  namely  in  their  Divinity,  or  are  three 
persons  of  God.  It  is  the  more  certain  since  (c)  the 
same  holy  apostle  even  before,  in  his  Gospel,  mentions 
each  of  the  three  witnesses  of  heaven,  the  Father,  the 
Son  or  Word,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  aud  mentions  them  as 
three  persons  of  God,  consubstantial  among  themselves, 
when  expounding  the  words  of  the  Saviour :  Though  I 
bear  record  of  myself,  yet  my  record  is  true  :  for  I  know 
whence  I  came,  and  whither  I  go.  I  am  one  that  bears 
witness  of  myself,  and  the  Father  that  sent  me  beareth 
witness  of  me  (John  viii.  14,  18  ;  cf.  John  v.  32,  37)  ; 
but  when  the  Comforter  is  come,  whom  I  will  send  unto 
you  from  the  Father,  even  the  Spirit  of  truth,  which  pro- 
ceedeth  from  the  Father,  he  shall  testify  of  me  (John  xv. 
26)  ;  he  shall  glorify  me  :  for  he  shall  receive  of  mine, 
and  shall  show  it  unto  you.  All  things  that  the  Father 
hath  are  mine  :  therefore  said  I,  that  he  shall  take  of 
mine,  and  shall  shew  it  unto  you  (John  xvi.  14,  15)." 
(pp.  179  and  180.) 

Still  more  unfortunate  it  is  that  this  solitary  passage, 
which,  however  weak  it  is,  at  least  in  some  way  confirms 
the  words  of  the  three  Gods  and  of  one,  that  this  same 
passage  turns  out,  according  to  the  testimony  of  the  The- 
ology, to  be  debatable,  and,  according  to  the  unanimous 
testimony  of  all  learned  criticism,  spurious  : 

"  Unfair  is  the  attempt  which  is  made  to  doubt  the 
authenticity  of  the  passage  under  discussion,  by  pointing 
out  that  it  does  not  exist  in  certain  Greek  texts  of  the 
New  Testament  and  in  certain  translations,  especially  in 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  181 

the  East,  and  by  showing  that  it  was  not  used  by  the 
ancient  fathers  of  the  church,  such  as  St.  Gregory  the 
Divine,  Ambrose,  Hilary,  nor  by  the  Councils  of  Nice 
and  Sardis  and  others,  which  were  against  the  Arians, 
though  this  verse  might  have  served  as  an  important  tool 
against  the  heretics,  and  though  some  of  the  fathers  have 
made  use  of  verses  6  and  8  of  the  same  chapter,  which 
are  much  less  strong  and  decisive.  All  these  proofs  of 
the  assumed  spuriousness  of  the  verse  under  discussion 
are  quite  insufficient  for  their  purpose  and,  besides,  are 
refuted  by  positive  proofs  :  («)  if  in  some  Greek  texts  of 
the  New  Testament,  which  have  been  preserved  until  the 
present,  this  verse  does  not  exist,  it  has  been  and  still  is 
in  many  others.  Why  then,  arises  the  question,  should 
we  give  preference  to  the  first  over  the  latter  and  con- 
clude that  it  was  added  to  the  latter,  and  not  omitted  in 
the  first  ?  On  the  contrary,  justice  demands  that  prefer- 
ence be  given  to  the  latter."     (pp.  180,  181.) 

Those  are  all  the  proofs  from  Holy  Scripture  of  the 
Old  and  the  New  Testament.  The  only  passage  from 
the  whole  Scripture  which  presents  a  similitude  of  that 
assertion  that  God  is  one  and  three  is  spurious,  and  its 
reality  is  confirmed  by  the  polemics  of  the  composer  of 
the  Theology. 

But  there  are  also  proofs  from  Holy  Tradition  : 
"  (28)  Confirmation  of  the  same  truth  from  Holy  Tra- 
dition. No  matter  how  clear  and  numerous  the  pas- 
sages are  from  Holy  Scripture,  especially  from  the  New 
Testament,  which  contain  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  of 
tlie  persons  in  one  God,  it  is  necessary  for  us  here  to  turn 
to  Holy  Tradition  which  has  been  preserved  in  the  chui'^L 
from  its  very  beginning.  It  is  necessary  to  do  so  because 
all  these  passages  from  Scripture  have  been  subject  to  all 
kinds  of  interpretations  and  controversies,  which  cannot 
be  permanently  settled,  at  least  not  for  a  believer,  but 
by  the  voice  of  the  apostolic  tradition  and  the  ancient 


182  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

church.  It  is  necessary  also  in  order  to  defend  the  church 
itself  against  the  unjust  rebuke  of  the  freethinkers  that 
the  church  began  to  offer  the  doctrine  about  the  three 
hypostases  in  God  only  with  the  fourth  century,  or  with 
the  First  CEcumenical  Council,  but  that  before  that  time 
it  was  entirely  unknown  to  the  church,  or  was  presented 
iu  an  entirely  different  form.  Consequently  it  is  suffi- 
cient to  take  the  thread  of  the  tradition  to  the  fourth 
century,  or  to  the  First  CEcumenical  Council,  and  to 
show  whether  and  how  the  ancient  Christian  church 
taught  about  the  Holy  Trinity  in  the  first  three  cen- 
turies." 

So  we  have  learned  from  the  Theology,  that  there  are 
absolutely  no  proofs  in  Scripture  in  confirmation  of  the 
Trinity,  except  the  polemics  of  the  composer  of  the  The- 
ology ;  we  have  also  learned  that  it  is  not  even  possible 
to  assert  that  the  church  has  always  adhered  to  this  tra- 
dition and  that  the  only  foundation  of  this  assertion  is 
left  in  the  polemical  art  of  the  composer  of  the  Theology. 
I  have  read  all  the  proofs  of  Art.  28,  which  show  in  fif- 
teen pages  that  the  church  has  always  professed  the 
Trinity,  but  these  arguments  have  not  convinced  me,  not 
because  I  have  read  more  exact  and  convincing  proofs 
against  it,  but  because  my  feeling  revolts  and  I  cannot 
believe  that  God,  who  has  revealed  himself  to  me  in  such 
a  senseless,  wild  expression  as  that  ♦'  I  am  one  and  three, 
and  I  am  the  Father  and  tlie  Son,  and  I  am  the  Spirit," 
should  not  have  given  me  in  his  Scripture,  or  in  his 
Tradition,  or  in  my  soul,  any  means  to  understand  what 
it  signifies,  but  has  condemned  rae,  for  the  solution  of  the 
question  about  God  and  my  salvation,  to  have  recourse  to 
no  other  means  than  believing  the  argument  of  the  Ortho- 
dox Theology  against  the  rationalists,  and  repeating,  with- 
out comprehension  of  what  I  am  saying,  the  words  which 
the  Orthodox  Theology  will  dictate  to  me. 

I  was  on  the  point  of  making  my  last  conclusion  about 


CRITIQUE   OF   DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY  183 

this  dogma,  wheu,  immediately  after  the  article  about  the 
Traditiou,  there  was  revealed  to  me  Art.  29,  aud  as  the 
crown  of  the  whole:  The  relation  of  the  dogma  about 
the  Trinity  of  the  persons  in  one  God  to  common  sense, 
— "  we  shall  now  take  the  liberty  to  say  a  few  words 
about  its  relation  to  common  sense,  in  order,  on  the  one 
hand,  to  overthrow  the  false  opinions  in  respect  to  this 
subject,  and,  on  the  other,  to  point  out  and  elucidate  to 
ourselves  the  true  opinion.  Since  antiquity  there  have 
existed  two  false  opinions  in  respect  to  this  matter. 
Some  have  asserted  that  the  teaching  of  the  triune  God 
is  contrary  to  common  sense,  because  it  is  contradictory 
in  itself,  but  they  assert  so  without  any  foundation :  (a) 
Christianity  teaches  that  God  is  one  and  trine  not  in  the 
selfsame  relation,  but  in  different  relations,  that  he  is 
one  in  essence,  but  trine  in  person,  aud  gives  us  one  con- 
ception about  the  divine  essence,  and  another  about  the 
divine  persons,  so  that  these  concepts  in  no  way  exclude 
each  other :  where  then  is  the  contradiction  ? " 

Christianity  gives  us  one  conception  about  the  essence, 
and  another  about  the  divine  persons.  That  is  precisely 
what  I  have  been  looking  for,  namely,  what  these  differ- 
ent conceptions  about  the  persons  and  the  essence  are, 
but  that  is  not  to  be  found  anywhere.  Not  only  is  it 
absent,  but  there  can  be  no  answer,  because  the  words 
ouo-ta  and  vir6crTa(n<i  now  mean  something  different,  and 
now  mean  one  and  the  same,  and  are  used  indiscriminately. 

"  If  Christianity  taught  that  God  is  one  in  essence  and 
trine  in  essence,  or  that  there  are  in  him  three  persons 
and  one,  or  again,  that  person  and  essence  in  God  are 
identical,  then  there  would  indeed  be  a  contradiction. 
But,  we  repeat,  Christianity  does  not  teach  that,  and  he 
who  does  not  intentionally  mix  the  Christian  conceptions 
of  the  essence  and  the  persons  in  God  will  never  think  of 
looking  for  an  internal  contradiction  in  the  teaching 
about  the  Holy  Trinity."     (p.  204.) 


184  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

Does  not  intentionally  mix.  Have  I  not  strained  all 
the  powers  of  my  mind  in  order  to  find  in  the  teach- 
ing the  slightest  difference  in  the  conceptions  about  the 
essence  and  the  persons,  without  finding  any  ?  And 
the  author  knows  that  there  is  none. 

"  (&)  In  order  to  call  a  certain  idea  contradictory  to 
common  sense  and  to  itself,  it  is  necessary  first  of  all 
completely  to  grasp  this  idea>  to  comprehend  the  meaning 
of  its  subject  and  predicate,  and  to  see  their  incongruity. 
But  in  relation  to  the  mystery  of  the  Holy  Trinity  no 
one  can  boast  of  that ;  all  we  know  is  what  nature  or 
essence  or  person  among  creatures  is,  but  we  do  not  fully 
comprehend  the  essence,  or  the  persons  in  God,  who  infi- 
nitely surpasses  all  his  creations.  Consequently  we  are 
not  able  to  judge  whether  the  idea  of  God  one  in  essence 
and  trine  in  persons  is  congruous  or  not;  we  have  not 
the  right  to  assert  that  the  idea  that  God  one  in  essence 
and  three  in  persons  includes  an  internal  contradiction. 
Is  it  sensible  to  judge  of  what  is  not  comprehensible  ? " 
(p.  204.) 

In  division  a  it  was  said  that  the  conception  of  the 
essence  was  one,  and  of  the  persons  another,  and  that 
Christianity  taught  it,  but  this  teaching  did  not  appear 
anywhere ;  but  let  us  suppose  that  we  have  not  read 
what  precedes,  have  not  studied  the  whole  book,  and 
have  not  convinced  ourselves  that  such  a  distinction 
exists,  and  that  we  believe  it.  How  then  is  it  said  in 
division  h :  that  we  cannot  and  have  not  the  right  to  call 
an  idea  "  contradictory  to  common  sense  without  having 
comprehended  the  meaning  of  its  subject  and  predicate  "  ? 
The  subject  is  1,  the  predicate  3,  —  that  is  comprehen- 
sible. But  if  the  subject  is  one  God  and  the  predicate 
three  Gods,  the  contradiction  is  by  the  laws  of  reason  the 
same.  If,  according  to  the  Introduction  of  the  concept  of 
God,  one  may  become  equal  to  three,  we  shall  insensibly 
be  talking  about  what  we  do  not  comprehend,  before  we 


CRITIQUE    OP    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  185 

insensibly  judge  of  what  we  do  not  understand.  And  it 
is  there  where  it  begins.  And  these  senseless  words, 
according  to  the  confession  of  the  Theology,  the  highest 
reason  and  the  highest  goodness  speaks  in  reply  to  the 
entreaties  of  his  children  searching  after  truth. 

"  (c)  On  the  contrary,  common  sense  cannot  help  recog- 
nizing this  idea  as  completely  true  and  devoid  of  any  con- 
tradiction. It  does  not  comprehend  its  internal  meaning  ; 
but  on  the  basis  of  external  testimony  it  knows  conclu- 
sively that  this  idea  has  clearly  been  communicated  by 
God  himself  in  the  Christian  revelation :  God  is  the  God 
of  truth."     (p.  205.) 

What  is  said  cannot  be  understood,  but  it  is  so  "  on  the 
basis  of  external,  conclusive  testimony,"  so  that  it  is  pos- 
sible, without  understanding  them,  to  repeat  the  words 
which  the  Theology  speaks ;  but  in  this  case,  as  we  see, 
there  are  none  of  those  external  proofs,  not  only  no  con- 
clusive proofs,  but  no  proofs  at  all.  Nowhere  in  Holy 
Scripture  does  it  say  that  the  Spirit  of  God  is  a  third 
person.  What  Moses  wrote  about  God  saying  to  himself, 
"  Let  us  make,"  cannot  be  called  a  reliable  proof.  And 
the  fact  that  in  Jesus  Christ's  conversation  in  St.  John 
there  is  once  used  the  word  Holy  Ghost  when  speaking  of 
the  truth,  is  not  a  conclusive  evidence.  The  fact  that  in 
baptizing  into  Christianity  the  words,  "  In  the  name  of  the 
Father,  and  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,"  are  used  is  also 
not  an  evidence.  The  spurious  verse  from  the  Epistle  of 
John  not  only  does  not  argue  in  favour  of  the  Trinity, 
but  is  a  clear  proof  of  there  not  being,  and  never  having 
been,  any  proof,  and  that  those  who  wanted  to  prove  it 
felt  so  themselves. 

From  the  external  evidences  there  is  left  only  the 
polemic  of  the  author  against  those  who  reject  the  verse 
from  St.  John  and  against  the  rationalists  who  assert  that 
the  church  did  not  accept  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  until 
the  fourth  century.     Let  us  assume  that  I  am  so  little  in= 


186  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

telligent  and  so  illiterate  that  I  believe  the  polemic  of  the 
author  and  agree  with  him  that  the  dogma  of  the  Trinity 
is  recognized  by  the  One,  Holy,  Catholic,  Apostolic,  Infal- 
lible Church,  and  that  I  want  to  believe  in  it.  I  cannot 
believe  it,  because  I  cannot  form  any  concept  about 
what  is  meant  by  the  triune  God.  Neither  I  nor  any  one 
else  can  recognize  this  dogma,  if  for  no  other  reason,  be- 
cause the  words,  as  they  were  expressed  at  first,  have 
remained,  after  long  speeches,  quasi-explanations  and 
proofs,  nothing  but  words  which  can  have  no  meaning 
whatever  for  a  man  with  an  unimpaired  reason. 

On  the  basis  of  the  sacred  church  tradition  you  may 
assert  anything  you  please,  and  if  the  tradition  is  imper- 
turbable, it  is  impossible  not  to  recognize  as  true  what  is 
transmitted  by  tradition ;  in  any  case,  it  is  necessary  to 
assert  something,  but  here  nothing  is  asserted,  —  these 
are  words  without  any  inner  connection.  Let  us  assume 
that  it  is  asserted  that  God  lives  on  Olympus,  that  God  is 
made  of  gold,  that  there  is  no  god,  that  there  are  four- 
teen gods,  that  God  has  children,  or  a  son.  All  those  are 
strange,  wild  assumptions,  but  with  each  of  them  some 
idea  is  connected  ;  but  no  idea  is  connected  with  the 
assertion  that  God  is  one  and  three.  So,  no  matter  what 
authority  may  assert  it,  even  if  it  be  all  the  living  and 
dead  patriarchs  of  Alexandria  and  Antioch,  and  no  matter 
what  uninterrupted  voice  from  heaven  may  call  out  to 
me,  saying,  "  I  am  one  and  three,"  I  shall  remain  in  the 
same  condition,  not  of  unbelief  (there  is  nothing  here  to 
believe  in),  but  of  perplexity  about  what  these  words 
mean,  and  in  what  language  and  by  what  law  they  may 
receive  a  meaning.  For  me,  a  man  educated  in  the  spirit 
of  the  Christian  faith,  who  after  all  the  erring  of  his  life 
has  retained  a  dim  consciousness  of  what  there  is  true  in 
it;  for  me,  who  by  the  blunders  of  life  and  the  seduction 
of  reason  have  reached  the  negation  of  life  and  most  ter- 
rible despair ;  for  me,  who  have  fouud  salvation  in  uniting 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  187 

with  it  the  spirit  of  religion,  which  I  recognized  as  the 
only  divine  force  which  moved  humanity,  and  who  have 
Ijeeu  in  search  of  the  highest  expression  of  this  religion, 
which  would  be  accessible  to  me  ;  for  me,  who  above  all 
believe  in  God  my  Father,  through  whose  will  I  exist, 
suffer,  and  agonizingly  search  after  his  revelation ;  for  me 
to  admit  that  these  senseless,  blasphemous  words  are  the 
only  answer  which  I  can  receive  from  my  Father  in  re- 
sponse to  my  entreaty  as  to  how  to  understand  and  love 
him,  for  me  this  is  impossible. 

It  is  impossible  to  believe  that  God,  my  good  Father 
(according  to  the  teaching  of  the  church),  knowing  that 
my  salvation  or  perdition  depends  on  my  comprehension 
of  him,  should  have  expressed  the  most  essential  knowl- 
edge about  himself  in  such  a  way  that  my  reason,  which 
he  has  given  me,  should  not  be  able  to  comprehend  his 
expressions,  and  (according  to  the  teaching  of  the  church) 
should  have  concealed  all  that  truth,  so  important  to 
men,  under  indications  in  the  plural  number  of  verbs 
and,  in  any  case,  in  an  ambiguous,  obscure  interpretation 
of  words,  such  as  the  Spirit  and  the  Son,  in  Jesus'  fare- 
well conversation  in  St.  John,  and  in  the  spurious  verse 
in  the  Epistle,  and  that  my  knowledge  of  God  and  my 
salvation  and  that  of  billions  of  men  should  depend  on  a 
greater  or  lesser  verbal  glibness  of  all  the  Kenans  and 
Makaris.    I  shall  believe  him  who  has  the  best  arguments. 

No !  If  it  were  so,  God  would  have  given  me  such  an 
intellect  that  1=3  would  be  as  comprehensible  as  it  is 
impossible  now,  and  such  a  heart  that  it  would  be  a  joy 
to  admit  three  gods,  whereas  now  my  heart  revolts  against 
them,  or,  at  least,  he  would  have  given  all  that  to  me  in 
a  definite  and  simple  manner,  and  not  in  debatable  and 
ambiguous  words.  God  cannot  have  commanded  me  to 
believe.  The  very  reason  why  I  do  not  believe  is  because 
I  love,  worship,  and  fear  God.  I  am  afraid  to  believe 
the  he  which  surrounds  us  and  to  lose  God.     That  is 


188  CRITIQUE    OV    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

impossible,  and  not  only  impossible,  but  it  is  quite  clear 
that  it  is  not  the  truth,  that  I  was  mistaken  in  thinking 
that  I  could  find  an  answer  and  a  solution  of  my  doubts 
in  the  church.  I  had  intended  to  go  to  God,  and  I  found 
my  way  into  a  stinking  bog,  which  evokes  in  me  only 
those  feehngs  of  which  I  am  most  afraid :  disgust,  malice, 
and  indignation.  God,  that  incomprehensible,  but  still 
existing  one,  by  the  will  of  whom  I  live !  Thou  hast 
implanted  in  me  this  striving  after  the  knowledge  of  thee 
and  of  myself.  I  have  erred,  I  have  searched  after  the 
truth  in  the  wrong  place.  I  knew  that  I  erred.  I  have 
pampered  my  evil  passions,  and  I  knew  that  they  were 
bad,  but  I  have  never  forgotten  thee ;  1  have  always  felt 
thee,  even  in  moments  of  erring.  I  came  very  near  per- 
ishing, when  I  lost  thee,  but  thou  gavest  me  thy  hand, 
and  I  grasped  it,  and  life  was  illuminated  for  me.  Thou 
hast  saved  me,  and  I  am  searching  after  this  alone :  to 
come  near  unto  thee,  and  to  understand  thee  as  much  as 
is  possible.  Help  me,  teach  me !  I  know  that  I  am 
good,  that  I  love  and  want  to  love  all,  and  want  to  love 
truth.  Thou  art  the  God  of  love  and  truth,  take  me 
nearer  unto  thee,  disclose  everything  to  me,  so  that  I  may 
be  able  to  understand  about  myself  and  about  thee ! 

And  the  good  God,  the  God  of  truth,  replies  to  me 
through  the  mouth  of  the  church  :  "  The  Deity  is  one  and 
trine.     Oh,  most  glorious  transformation  !  " 

Go  yourselves  to  your  father,  the  devil,  you  who  have 
taken  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  and  have  not 
yourselves  entered  it  and  have  closed  it  against  others ! 
You  are  not  speaking  of  God,  but  of  something  else. 


VI. 

Such  is  the  doctrine  about  the  Trinity  in  the  radical 
Christian  dogma,  as  expounded  in  fifty  pages.  On  this 
dogma  are  based,  and  with  its  refutal  are  refuted,  the 
dogmas  about  the  Kedeemer  and  Sanctitier,  and  every  one 
of  the  dogmas  which  refer  to  the  house-management  of 
our  salvation.  I  reject  this  dogma.  I  cannot  help  reject- 
ing it,  because,  by  accepting  it,  I  should  be  renouncing  the 
consciousness  of  my  rational  soul  and  the  cognition  of 
God.  But,  while  rejecting  this  dogma,  which  is  so  con- 
trary to  human  reason,  and  which  has  no  foundation 
either  in  Scripture,  or  in  Tradition,  I  still  find  inexphcable 
the  cause  which  has  led  the  church  to  profess  tJiis  sense- 
less dogma  and  so  carefully  pick  out  the  imaginary  proofs 
to  confirm  it.  That  is  the  more  surprising  to  me  since 
that  terrible,  blasphemous  dogma,  as  expounded  here,  can 
apparently  be  of  no  use  to  any  one  or  in  anything,  and 
since  it  is  impossible  to  deduce  any  moral  rule  from  it, 
as  indeed  is  evident  from  the  moral  application  of  the 
dogma,  —  a  collection  of  meaningless  words,  which  are 
not  connected  in  any  way.  Here  is  the  application  of  the 
dogma : 

"(1)  All  the  persons  of  the  Most  Holy  Trinity,  except 

the  common  attributes,  which  belong  to  them  according 

to  their  essence,  have  still  other,  especial  attributes,  by 

which  they  differ  from  each  other,  so  that  the  Father  is 

indeed   the   Father  and   occupies  the   first  place  in   the 

order  of  divine  persons,  the  Son  is  the  Son  and  occupies 

189 


190  CRITIQUE    OP^    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

the  second  place,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  is  the  Holy  Ghost 
and  occupies  the  third  place,  although  by  their  divinity 
they  are  entirely  equal  among  themselves.  To  each  of 
us  the  Creator  has  given,  in  addition  to  the  properties 
which  we  all  have  in  common  by  our  human  nature, 
special  properties,  special  talents,  by  which  our  special 
calhng  and  place  is  defined  in  the  circle  of  our  friends. 
To  know  these  faculties  and  talents  in  ourselves,  and  to 
use  them  for  our  own  benefit  and  for  the  benefit  of 
our  friends  and  for  the  glory  of  God,  so  as  to  justify 
our  calling  in  this  way,  is  the  unquestionable  duty 
of  each  man.  (2)  Differing  from  each  other  in  their 
personal  properties,  all  the  persons  of  the  Most  Holy 
Trinity  are,  none  the  less,  in  a  constant  mutual  communioti : 
the  Father  is  in  the  Son  and  in  the  Holy  Ghost ;  the  Son 
is  in  the  Father  and  in  the  Holy  Ghost ;  the  Holy  Ghost 
is  in  the  Father  and  in  the  Son  (John  xiv.  10).  Even 
thus  we,  with  all  our  differences  according  to  our  personal 
qualities,  must  observe  the  greatest  possible  communion 
and  moral  union  among  ourselves,  being  bound  by  the 
unity  of  essence  and  the  bond  of  brotherly  love.  (3)  In 
particular,  let  the  fathers  among  ourselves  keep  in  mind 
whose  great  name  they  bear,  even  as  the  sons,  and  all  those 
who  are  begotten  from  the  fathers,  —  and,  keeping  this 
in  mind,  let  them  see  to  it  that  they  sanctify  the  names 
of  father  or  son  which  they  bear,  through  an  exact  per- 
formance of  all  the  obligations  imposed  upon  them  by 
these  names  —  (4)  Finally,  keeping  in  mind,  to  what 
disastrous  results  the  Eastern  Christians  have  been  led 
through  their  arbitrary  reasoning  on  the  personal  essence 
of  God  the  Holy  Ghost,  let  us  learn  to  cling  as  fast  as 
possible  to  the  dogmas  of  faith  of  the  teaching  of  the 
word  of  God  and  the  Orthodox  Church,  and  not  to  cross 
the  eternal  boundaries  which  our  fathers  in  faith  have 
set." 

Thus  it  remains  incomprehensible  why  this  dogma  is 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  191 

confirmed.  Not  only  is  it  senseless  and  not  based  on 
Scripture  or  on  Tradition,  and  nothing  comes  of  it;  in 
reality,  according  to  my  immediate  observation  of  the 
believers,  and  according  to  my  own  personal  recollection 
of  the  time  when  I  myself  was  a  believer,  it  turns  out 
that  I  never  believed  in  the  Trinity  and  never  saw  a  man 
who  believed  in  the  dogma  of  the  Trinity.  Out  of  a 
hundred  men  and  women  among  the  people  not  more 
than  three  will  be  able  to  name  the  persons  of  the  Trinity, 
and  not  more  than  thirty  will  be  able  to  say  what  the 
Trinity  is,  and  will  not  be  able  to  name  the  persons,  but 
will  include  among  them  St.  Nicholas  the  Miracle-worker 
and  the  Mother  of  God.  The  others  do  not  even  know 
anything  about  the  Trinity.  Among  the  masses  I  have 
not  come  across  any  conception  about  the  Trinity.  Christ 
is  called  the  GJod-man,  as  it  were,  the  eldest  of  the  saints. 
The  Holy  Ghost  is  entirely  unknown,  and  God  remains 
the  incomprehensible,  almighty  God,  the  beginning  of 
everything.  Nobody  ever  prays  to  the  Holy  Ghost,  no 
one  ever  invokes  him.  In  the  more  cultured  circles  I 
have  also  not  found  any  belief  in  the  Holy  Ghost.  I 
have  met  very  many  who  very  fervently  believed  in  Christ, 
but  never  have  I  heard  the  Holy  Ghost  mentioned  except 
for  the  purpose  of  theological  discussion.  The  same  was 
true  of  me :  during  all  those  years  when  I  was  an  Ortho- 
dox believer  the  idea  of  the  Holy  Ghost  never  entered  my 
mind.  The  belief  in  and  definition  of  the  Trinity  I  have 
found  only  in  the  schools,  and  thus  it  turns  out  that  the 
dogma  of  the  Trinity  is  not  rational,  not  based  on  any- 
thing, is  good  for  nothing,  and  no  one  believes  in  it,  while 
the  church  professes  it. 

In  order  to  comprehend  why  the  church  does  that,  it 
is  necessary  to  investigate  the  further  exposition  of  the 
church,  and  I  proceed  to  do  this.  It  would  be  a  useless 
labour  in  the  consequent  investigation  to  point  out  all  the 
errors,  contradictions,  senseless  statements,  and  lies,  for 


192  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

the  investigation  of  the  first  two  chapters  about  the  most 
important  dogmas  has  sufficiently  demonstrated  to  the 
reader  what  the  methods  of  reasoning  and  the  expressions 
of  the  author  are.  I  will  now  give  a  short  exposition  of 
all  the  dogmas,  in  their  general  interrelation,  giving  the 
pages  and  pointing  out  the  chief  propositions  which  are 
adduced  in  confirmation  of  the  dogmas.  I  do  this  in 
order  from  the  general  connection  of  the  whole  teaching 
to  elucidate  the  meaning  which  may  not  become  evident 
from  the  separate  passages. 

I  repeat  what  was  in  the  beginning,  so  as  to  proceed 
consistently. 

There  is  a  God,  and  he  is  one  (Art.  13).  He  is  a  spirit 
(Art.  17).  He  has  an  infinite  number  of  attributes;  liis 
attributes,  as  revealed  to  us,  are  as  follows  (Art.  19). 
His  attributes  in  general :  unlimitedness,  self-existence, 
independence,  unchangeableuess,  omnipresence,  eternity, 
almightiuess.  The  attributes  of  his  mind  (Art.  20) :  om- 
niscience and  all-wisdom.  The  attributes  of  his  will 
(Art  21) :  goodness,  freedom,  holiness,  truth,  justice.  God, 
in  addition  to  that,  has  persons.  He  is  one  and  three 
persons.  The  persons  are  independent  and  inseparable 
(proofs  from  Holy  Scripture,  Arts.  26,  27,  and  28).  All 
three  persons  are  equal  to  each  other,  though  some  have 
thought  that  one  is  more  important  than  the  others.  But 
that  is  not  true  ;  they  are  all  equal :  the  Father  is  God,  the 
Son  is  God  and  consubstantial  with  the  Father ;  there 
are  adduced  disputes  which  prove  the  opposite,  and  proofs 
from  Holy  Scripture  which  prove  the  opposite,  and  dis- 
cussions about  one  God  not  being  subject  to  another,  but 
that  both  have  equal  power.  The  same  is  true  of  the 
divinity  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  Father,  the  Son,  and 
the  Holy  Ghost  have  personal  properties.  Art.  32.  Many 
controversies  are  cited  about  the  personal  attributes,  and 
finally  there  is  an  exposition  of  the  dogma  that  the  per- 
sonal attribute  of  the  Father  consists  ir  this,  that  he  is 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  193 

not  generated,  but  begets  the  Son,  and  produces  the  Holy 
Ghost,     (p.  263.) 

"  (a)  Entirely  in  a  spiritual  manner  and  consequently 
without  any  suffering,  without  any  sensuous  secretion  : 
because  the  essence  of  God  is  immaterial  and  simple ;  (b) 
he  begets  and  produces  since  eternity  and  for  eternity  : 
for  there  has  been  no  time  when  the  Father  has  not  been 
the  Father  of  the  Son  and  the  producer  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  just  as  there  was  no  time  when  he  was  not  God, 
and  what  has  never  begun  cannot  be  said  ever  to  end ;  (c) 
he  begets  and  produces  in  such  a  way  as  only  he  alone 
knows  and  he  who  is  born  from  him  and  proceeds  from 
him,  but  of  the  creatures  none  can  comprehend  it ;  (d) 
tiually,  begin uinglessness  and  causelessness  are  exclusively 
appropriated  by  God  the  Father  only  in  relation  to  the 
otiier  persons  of  the  Holy  Trinity,  but  by  their  divinity 
the  Son  and  the  Spirit  are  also  begin ningless  and  cause- 
less, or,  rather,  the  whole  Trinity  is  co-beginningless  and 
co-causeless."     (pp.  263  and  264.) 

"41.  The  personal  attribute  of  God,  the  Holy  Ghost." 
(p.  267.) 

A  controversy  of  over  fifty  pages  about  the  question 
from  whom  the  Holy  Ghost  proceeds,  whether  from  the 
Father  and  the  Son,  or  from  the  Father  alone.  The  dis- 
pute is  settled  by  an  analysis  of  external  proofs.  The 
proofs  are  as  follows  : 

"  Who,  putting  his  hand  on  his  heart,  will  have  the 
courage  to  affirm  that  we,  who  believe  that  the  Holy 
Ghost  proceeds  from  the  Father,  have  deviated  from  the 
truth  ?  Who  will  dare,  in  all  conscience,  to  rebuke  us 
for  observing  a  heresv  ?  If  we  are  rebuked  for  an  error 
or  a  heresy,  it  would  be  just  as  right  to  rebuke  for  it  all 
the  holy  fathers  and  teachers  of  the  church ;  the  same  as 
to  rebuke  the  (Ecumenical  Councils,  not  only  locally,  but 
altogether  the  whole  ancient  church ;  the  same  as  to 
rebuke    the  Word    of   God   itself   for  error  and   heresy. 


194  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

Who,    we    repeat,  will   be  bold    enough    to   utter   such 
blasphemy  ? " 

Then  follows  a  moral  exposition  of  the  dogma  of  the 
Trinity,  which  was  quoted  before.  One  cannot  help  but 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  simplest,  clearest  applica- 
tion of  all  the  preceding  controversies  is  that  one  must 
not  speak  any  foolishness ;  above  all,  one  must  not  teach 
what  nobody  can  understand,  and,  more  important  still, 
one  must  not  impair  the  chief  foundations  of  faith,  love, 
and  charity  to  your  neighbour. 

Then  follows  "  Division  II.  Of  God  in  his  general  rela- 
tion to  the  world  and  to  man.  Chapter  I.  Of  God  as  the 
Creator."     God  has  created  the  world. 

Here  is  the  way  the  church  teaches  about  it : 
"  Unquestionably  God  is  the  creator  of  all  visible  and 
invisible  creations.  First  he  produced  through  thought 
all  the  celestial  powers,  as  exalted  psalmists  of  his  glory, 
and  created  all  that  mental  world  which,  through  the 
grace  given  to  it,  knows  God  and  is  always  and  in  every- 
thing devoted  to  his  will.  After  that  he  created  out  of 
nothing  this  visible  and  material  world.  At  last  God 
created  man,  who  is  composed  of  the  immaterial  rational 
soul  and  the  material  body,  so  that  from  this  one  man, 
thus  composed,  it  might  be  seen  that  he  is  the  creator  of 
both  the  worlds,  the  immaterial  and  the  material."  (p. 
351.) 

After  that,  as  always,  follows  a  controversy : 
"  Some  assumed  that  the  world  was  eternal ;    others 
admitted  its  emanation  from  God ;    others  again  taught 
that  the  world  was  created  by  itself,  by  accident,  from  the 
eternal  chaos  or   from   atoms ;    others  taught  that  God 
has  formed  it  from  coeternal  matter ;    but  no  one  could 
rise  to  the  concept  of  the  production  of  the  world  out  of 
nothing  by  the  almighty  power  of  God."     (p.  352.) 
All  these  opinions  are  refuted  in  Art.  55  : 
•'God  created  the  world  ou*:  of  nothing."     56.     "God 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  195 

created  the  world  not    from    eternity,  but    in   time,  or 
together  with  time."     (p.  360.) 

The  farther  one  reads  the  book,  the  more  one  has  to 
marvel.  It  looks  as  though  the  problem  and  purpose  of 
the  book  consisted  in  keeping  out  rational  compieheusion, 
not  the  comprehension  of  the  divine  mysteries,  but  simply 
the  comprehension  of  what  is  being  said.  I  can  imagine 
a  man  who  admits  that  God  created  the  world.  Well, 
what  more  do  you  want  ?  He  does  not  care  to  inquire 
any  farther  into  the  teaching.  No,  they  demand  of  Mm 
that  he  should  recognize  that  the  world  is  created  not 
from  something,  but  from  notliing,  not  from  eternity,  but 
in  time.  On  this  point  there  is  a  controversy,  and  it  is 
proved  to  him  that  the  world  was  created  in  time  or,  more 
correctly,  with  time.  "  Prescience  or  predetermination 
were  in  God  before  existence."  It  says,  "  At  one  time 
the  world  did  not  exist,"  that  is,  it  says,  if  God's  prescience 
be  admitted,  that  when  there  was  no  time,  God  knew  the 
future.  And  when  it  says,  "  At  one  time  the  world  cUd 
not  exist,"  and  time  did  not  exist,  it  says  that  there  was 
time  (for  "  at  one  time  "  means  time)  when  there  was  no 
time.  And  when  it  says  that  "  God  created  time,"  it  says 
(since  the  verb  is  used  in  the  past  tense),  there  was  a  time 
when  God  created  time. 

57.  The  world  was  created  by  all  three  persons. 
This  is  proved  by  Holy  Scripture,  and  is  expressed  thus : 

"  The  Father  created  the  world  through  the  Son  in  the 
Holy  Ghost ; "  or  "  everything  is  from  the  Father  through 
the  Son  in  the  Holy  Ghost ; "  however,  not  in  the  sense 
that  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost  performed  some  instru- 
mental and  slavish  service  at  the  creation,  but  that  con- 
structively they  performed  the  Father's  will.     (p.  365.) 

58.  The  manacT  of  the  creation.  The  world  was 
created  (1)  through  reason,  (2)  through  willing,  and  (3) 
through  the  word : 

"  God  created  the  world  according  to  bis  eternal  ideas 


196  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

about  it,  quite  freely,  by  the  mere  beck  of  his  will  The 
plan  of  the  world  creation  had  been  predetermined  since 
eternity  in  his  ideas  ;  the  free  will  determined  to  niaterial- 
ize  this  plan ;  the  beck  of  his  will  actually  materiahzed 
it." 

Particularly  fine  is  here  the  word  "  ideas." 

59.  The  incitement  toward  the  creation,  and  its  pur- 
pose.    God  created  the  world  for  this  reason  : 

"  We  must  believe  that  God,  being  good  and  all-good, 
though  all-perfect  and  all-glorious  in  himself,  created  the 
world  out  of  nothing  for  the  purpose  that  other  beings, 
glorifying  him,  might  partake  of  his  grace."     (p.  370.) 

The  purpose  of  God  is  glory.  Proofs  from  Holy  Scrip- 
ture and  then  : 

60.  The  perfection  of  the  creation  and  whence  evil 
comes  into  the  world.  The  question  is.  Whence  comes 
the  evil  ?  and  the  answer  is  that  there  is  no  evil.  And 
the  proof  for  this  is  as  follows : 

"  God  is  a  supremely  all-vidse  and  omnipotent  being, 
consequently  he  could  not  have  created  the  world  imper- 
fect, could  not  have  created  a  single  thing  in  it  which 
would  be  insufficient  for  its  purpose  and  would  not  serve 
for  the  perfection  of  the  whole.  God  is  a  most  holy  and 
all-good  being,  consequently  he  could  not  be  the  cause  of 
evil,  either  physical  or  moral,  and  if  he  had  created  an 
imperfect  world,  it  would  have  been  so,  because  he  was 
unable  to  create  a  more  perfect  one,  or  because  he  did 
not  want  to.  But  both  assumptions  are  equally  incon- 
gruous witli  the  true  concept  of  the  highest  being."  End 
of  the  article,     (p.  376.) 

There  is  no  evil,  because  God  is  good.  But  how  about 
our  suffering  from  the  evil  ?  What  sense  was  there  in 
asking  ?  How  can  there  be  any  evil,  when  there  is 
none  ? 

61.  The  moral  application  of  the  dogma  is  that  it  is 
necessary  to  glorify  God,  and  so  forth. 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  197 

62.  About  the  spiritual  world.  "  Angels  are  incor- 
poreal spirits,  endowed  with  reason,  will,  and  power. 
They  were  created  before  the  visible  world  and  before 
man  — ;  are  divided  into  nine  forms  —  ;  and  the  evil 
angels  themselves  were  created  by  God  as  good,  but  be- 
came evil  by  their  own  will."     (p.  377.) 

And  again,  as  always,  there  conies  a  controversy  with 
those  who  spoke  differently  of  the  angels  and  the  demons. 
Then  proofs  from  Holy  Scripture  that  there  are  angels  of 
various  orders. 

"  65.  By  their  natures  the  angels  are  incorporeal 
spirits,  more  perfect  than  the  human  soul,  but  limited." 

They  were  created  after  the  likeness  of  God,  and  have 
mind  and  will.     Proofs  from  Holy  Scripture. 

66.  Number  and  degrees  of  angels.  The  celestial 
hierarchy. 

The  number  of  angels  is  legion,  that  is,  very  large. 
There  are  various  classes  of  celestial  powers,     (p.  396.) 

There  follows  a  controversy  with  Origen  about  the 
orders  of  the  angels,  and  it  is  proved  that  there  are  nine 
classes  of  them.     (p.  397.) 

"The  angels  are  divided  into  nine  classes,  and  these 
nine  into  three  orders.  In  the  first  order  are  those  who 
are  nearer  to  God,  such  as  thrones,  cherubim,  and 
seraphim ;  in  the  second  order  are  dominions,  princi- 
paUties,  and  powers ;  in  the  third  order  are  angels, 
archangels,  and  beginnings.  This  division  is  based 
partly  (a)  on  Holy  Scripture,  at  least  in  this  respect  that 
in  Holy  Scripture  we  meet  with  the  names  of  all  the 
orders  of  the  angels,  as  given  here  —  but  mainly  (b)  on 
Holy  Tradition."     (pp.  198  and  199.)  ' 

"  Of  the  private  opinions  the  most  noteworthy  is  this, 
that  the  division  of  the  angels  into  nine  orders  embraces 
only  the  names  and  orders  of  those  that  were  revealed  in 
the  Word  of  God,  but  does  not  embrace  many  other  names 
and  classes  of  angels  which  have  not  been  revealed  to  us 


198  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

in  this  life,  but  will  become  known  to  us  in  the  hfe  to 
come." 

67.  Various  appellations  of  evil  spirits  and  the 
authenticity  of  their  existence.  In  addition  to  the 
angels  there  are  the  devil  and  his  angels. 

"  That  this  devil  and  his  angels  are  accepted  in  Holy 
Scripture  as  personal  and  actual  beings,  and  not  as 
imaginary  beings,  is  to  be  seen  (1)  from  the  books  of 
the  Old  Testament,  (2)  still  more  from  the  books  of  the 
New  Testament."    Then  follow  proofs. 

68.  The  evil  spirits  were  created  good,  but  they  them- 
selves became  l,)ad.  How  the  good  could  have  become 
bad  is  not  explained,  but  there  are  many  proofs  from 
Scriptures.  The  devils  became  bad,  some  fathers  of  the 
church  say,  immediately  before  the  creation  of  the  world, 
while  others  say  that  the  devils  remained  for  a  consider- 
able time  in  the  state  of  grace,  (p.  406.)  The  devils  be- 
came bad  not  all  at  once : 

"  At  first  one  only  fell,  the  chief  of  them,  then  he  drew 
after  him  all  the  rest.  This  chief  devil,  according  to 
some  opinions,  had  been,  previous  to  his  fall,  the  very 
first  and  most  perfect  of  all  created  spirits,  who  excelled 
before  all  the  hosts  of  the  angels ;  but  according  to  the 
opinion  of  others,  he  belonged  to  the  order  of  the  su- 
preme spirits  (Ta^tapx^v),  to  the  leadership  of  which  the 
lower  orders  of  the  angels  were  subject,  —  indeed  he  was 
among  the  number  of  those  among  whom  the  Lord  appor- 
tioned the  government  of  the  parts  of  the  world.  The 
others,  whom  the  fallen  morning  star  drew  after  him, 
were  the  angels  who  were  subject  to  him,  who  therefore 
could  easily  be  carried  away  by  his  example,  or  suasion, 
or  deception."     (pp.  406  and  407.) 

What  sin  caused  the  devils  to  fall  ?  Some  say,  because 
they  mingled  with  the  daughters  of  man,  others  say 
through  envy,  and  others  again  say  through  ])ride. 

"  There  have  been  various  opinions  as  to  what  the  pride 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  199 

of  the  fallen  spirit,  which  formed  his  first  sin,  consisted 
in.  Some,  on  the  basis  of  the  words  of  Isaiah  (xiv.  13, 
14),  have  supposed  that  the  devil  took  it  into  his  head  to 
be  equal  with  God  in  essence  and  to  sit  on  the  same 
throne  with  him,  or  even  dreamed  of  being  higher  than 
God,  for  which  reason  he  became  God's  antagonist  who 
exalted  himself  al)ove  all  that  is  called  God,  or  that  is 
worshipped  (2  Thes.  ii.  4).  Others  supposed  that  the 
fallen  morning  star  did  not  wish  to  bow  before  the  Son 
of  God,  having  been  envious  of  his  privileges,  or  because 
he  saw  from  the  revelation  that  this  Son  of  God  would 
suffer  some  day,  and  so  doubted  his  divinity  and  did  not 
wish  to  acknowledge  him  as  God." 

How  deep  the  devils  fell,  and  whether  God  gave  them 
time  for  repentance,  is  also  determined  (p.  410) ;  it  is 
declared  that  previous  to  the  creation  of  the  world  the 
devils  had  a  chance  to  repent,  but  after  that  they  could 
no  longer  do  so. 

69.  The  nature  of  the  evil  spirits,  their  number,  and 
degrees.  The  nature  of  the  devils  is  the  same  as  that  of 
the  angels  ;  the  number  of  the  devils  is  very  great,  and  it 
is  assumed  that  there  are  orders  among  them  too.  From 
this  is  made  (Art.  70)  a  moral  application  of  the  dogma. 
The  application  of  the  dogma  is  here  more  startling  than 
in  the  previous  cases,  but  here  for  the  first  time  this 
application  has  a  definite  purpose : 

"  (3)  The  angels  of  God  are  all  equal  among  themselves 
in  their  nature,  but  are  distinguished  according  to  their 
powers  and  perfections,  and,  consequently,  there  are  among 
them  higher  and  lower  angels ;  there  are  those  who  rule, 
and  those  who  are  subject ;  there  is  an  invariable  hier- 
archy, established  by  God.  Even  thus  it  ought  to  be 
with  us :  in  all  the  unity  of  our  natures,  we  differ  from 
each  other,  by  the  will  of  the  Creator,  through  our  differ- 
ent faculties  and  distinctions ;  consequently  among  us, 
too,  there  ought  to  be  higher  and  lower,  rulers  and  sub- 


200  CKITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

jects,  and  in  our  societies  God  himself  arranges  the  order 
and  hierarchy,  enthrones  his  anointed  ones  (Prov.  viii.  15), 
gives  all  the  lower  powers  (Eom.  xiii.  1),  and  ordains  for 
each  man  his  service  and  place."     (p.  415.) 

For  the  first  time  a  definite  rule  is  patched  on  a 
dogma. 

71.  Soon  after  the  creation  of  the  angels  and  the  devils, 
God  created  the  material  world  in  this  fashion : 

"  In  the  beginning  God  created  from  nothing  the  heaven 
and  the  earth.  The  earth  was  without  form  and  void. 
Then  God  successively  produced :  on  the  first  day  of  the 
world,  light ;  on  the  second,  the  firmament  or  visible 
heaven ;  on  the  third,  the  gathering  of  the  waters  on  the 
earth,  the  dry  land,  and  the  plants ;  on  the  fourth, 
the  sun,  moon,  and  stars ;  on  the  fifth,  fishes  and  birds  ; 
on  the  sixth,  four-footed  animals  living  on  the  dry  land." 
(p.  416.) 

72.  Moses'  account  of  the  origin  of  the  material  world 
is  history.  A  proof  is  given  that  history  began  when 
there  was  no  time. 

73.  The  meaning  of  Moses'  account  of  the  creation  is 
six  days.  It  is  argued  that  all  of  Moses'  words  have  to 
be  taken  in  their  literal  sense. 

74.  A  refutal  of  the  objections  made  against  Moses' 
account.  In  refutal  of  the  false  opinion  of  the  rationalists 
that  there  could  not  be  any  day  and  night  when  there  was 
no  sun,  the  following  is  said : 

"  Nowadays,  indeed,  there  could  be  no  day  without  the 
sun,  but  at  that  time  it  was  possible.  For  that  only  two 
conditions  were  needed :  (a)  that  the  earth  should  turn 
around  its  own  axis,  and  (h)  that  the  light-bearing  matter, 
which  existed  even  then,  should  be  brought  into  a  quiver- 
ing motion.  But  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  earth  began 
to  turn  around  its  own  axis  with  the  very  first  day  of 
creation ;  nor  that  the  Creator  could  in  the  first  three 
days  by  his   immediate   power    bring   the    light-bearing 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  201 

matter  into  a  quivering  motion,  just  as  now,  beginuing 
with  the  fourth  day,  it  is  brought  into  motion  by  the 
celestial  luminaries,  which  have  received  this  power  from 
God."     (p.  423.) 

It  is  necessary  to  repeat  word  for  word  and  quickly  to 
admit  that  God  brings  the  light-bearing  matter  into  motion 
by  his  immediate  power,  as  though  his  problem  did  not 
consist  in  creating  the  world,  but  that  the  manner  of  the 
creation  should  agree  with  the  Bible,  rather  than  admit 
any  departure  from  the  words  of  Moses,  which  might 
harmonize  his  account  with  our  concepts  and  knowledge 
of  zoology,  physics,  and  astronomy.  The  whole  history  of 
the  creation  in  six  days  has  to  be  understood  word  for 
word ;  thus  the  church  commands.     This  is  a  dogma. 

75.  The  moral  application  of  the  dogma.  This  appli- 
cation consists  in  the  necessity  of  attending  mass  on 
Sunday  and  sanctifying  the  seventh  day. 

"  76.  The  Lord  our  God,  at  the  end  of  the  creation, 
produced  man,  who  belongs  equally  to  the  spiritual  world, 
by  his  soul,  and  to  the  material  world,  by  his  body,  and 
so  he  is,  as  it  were,  an  abbreviation  of  the  two  worlds  and 
has  since  antiquity  justly  been  called  the  little  w^orld." 
(p.  427.) 

"  God  in  the  Holy  Trinity  said :  Let  us  make  man  in 
our  image,  and  after  our  likeness  (Gen.  i.  26).  And  God 
made  the  body  of  the  first  man,  Adam,  from  the  earth  ; 
breathed  into  his  face  the  breath  of  life ;  brought  Adam 
into  Paradise ;  gave  him  for  food,  besides  the  other  fruits 
of  Paradise,  the  fruits  of  the  tree  of  hfe  ;  finally  he  took 
a  rib  from  Adam  during  his  sleep,  and  from  it  created  the 
first  woman.  Eve  —  "     (p.  427.) 

77.  The  essence  and  meaning  of  Moses'  account  of  the 
origin  of  the  first  men,  Adam  and  Eve.  This  account  of 
Moses-  is  to  be  taken  in  the  sense  of  history,  and  not  in 
the  sense  of  an  invention  or  myth,  because  Moses  and  the 
holy  fathers    understood    it  in    a    historical    sense.     On 


202  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

the  other  hand  it  says  (p.  429)  :  "  It  is  to  be  understood 
in  the  sense  of  history,  but  not  in  a  literal  sense." 

The  question  as  to  what  is  meant  by  understanding  in 
a  historical  but  not  a  hteral  sense  remains  unanswered. 

78.  The  origin  of  Adam  and  Eve  and  of  the  whole 
human  race.  According  to  the  estabhshed  order,  there 
follows  a  controversy.  Here  are  those  with  whom  the 
controversy  is  carried  on : 

"  This  trutli  has  two  kinds  of  enemies :  in  the  first 
place  those  who  affirm  that  there  existed  men  on  earth 
before  Adam  (Preadamites),  and  that,  therefore,  Adam  is 
not  the  first  ancestor  of  the  human  race ;  in  the  second 
place,  those  who  admit  that  with  Adam  there  were 
several  progenitors  of  the  human  race  (Postadamites),  and 
that,  consequently,  men  did  not  originate  from  one  root." 

As  in  many  other  passages  of  the  book,  it  is  evident 
that  the  point  is  not  in  the  refutal,  for  there  is  no  refutal, 
but  only  in  giving  utterance  to  a  dogma.  A  dogma  is 
only  the  product  of  a  controversy.  Consequently  it  is  nec- 
essary to  put  forward  that  against  which  an  argument  is 
adduced,  in  order  to  be  able  to  say  wherein  the  teaching 
of  the  church  consists.  Here,  of  course,  are  victoriously 
refuted  the  jjroofs  of  the  first  on  the  basis  of  Holy  Scrip- 
ture, arid  the  proofs  of  the  second  from  physiology, 
hnguistics,  and  geography,  —  on  the  basis  of  those  same 
sciences  which  are  interpreted  to  suit  its  own  purposes. 
These  proofs  of  the  unity  of  the  human  race  are  remark- 
able only  for  this,  that  here,  almost  under  our  eyes,  takes 
place  the  formation  of  what  is  called  a  dogma,  and  what, 
in  reality,  is  nothing  but  the  expression  of  one  particular 
opinion  in  any  controversy.  Some  prove  that  men  could 
not  have  had  one  progenitor,  others  prove  that  they  could. 
Neither  can  adduce  anything  conclusive  in  their  defence. 
And  this  dispute  is  not  interesting  and  has  nothing  in 
common  with  the  question  of  faith,  with  the  question  as 
to  what  constitutes  the  meaning  of  my  life.     Not  one 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  203 

of  the  disputants  is  disputing  for  the  sake  of  solving  the 
scientific  question,  but  each  because  a  certain  solution  is 
needed  by  him.     This  confirms  their  tradition. 

The  Theology  adduces  proofs  that  God  could  have 
counted  days,  when  there  was  no  sun,  by  saying  that 
he  shook  the  matter ;  but  to  prove  that  all  men  origi- 
nated in  one  man,  we  read  on  p.  437  : 

"  Nowadays  the  best  linguists,  after  prolonged  labours, 
have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  all  languages  and  all 
dialects  of  man  are  to  be  referred  to  three  chief  clashes, 
the  Indo-European,  the  Semitic,  and  the  Malay,  and  c^me 
down  from  one  root,  which  they  find  in  the  Hebrew 
language,  while  others  do  not  define  it."     (p.  437.) 

The  Theology  says  that  it  knows  all  about  it  in  this 
matter.  And  these  ignorant  words  pass  unnoticed  in 
the  world  of  science ;  but  let  us  imagine  that  the  com- 
poser of  the  Theology,  which  is  quite  possible,  will  turn 
out  to  be  a  father  of  the  church  in  three  hundred  years ; 
then  his  words  will  serve  as  a  confirmation  of  the  dogma. 
In  another  five  hundred  years  God  himself  who  shakes 
matter  may  become  a  dogma.  Only  such  reflection  gives 
an  explanation  to  those  strange,  wdld  utterances,  wdiich 
now  are  taken  as  dogmas. 

79.  The  origin  of  each  man  and,  in  particular,  the 
origin  of  the  soul.  All  men  originated  from  Adam,  "  still, 
none  the  less,  God  is  the  Creator  of  each  man.  The  dif- 
ference is  this,  that  Adam  and  Eve  he  created  directly, 
while  all  their  descendants  he  creates  indirectly,  by  the 
power  of  his  blessing,  which  he  gave  to  our  first  fathers 
soon  after  the  creation  of  the  world,  saying  :  Be  fruitful, 
and  multiply,  and  replenish  the  earth."     (p.  439.) 

Then  follow  texts  of  Holy  Scripture,  and  then  a 
minute  determination  by  the  church  when  the  soul  of 
man  is  created : 

"  The  holy  church,  believing  in  the  divine  Scripture, 
teaches  that  the  soul  is  created  with  the  body,  but  not 


204  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

together  with  the  seed  from  which  the  body  is  formed 
does  it  receive  its  existence,  but,  by  the  will  of  the  Cre- 
ator, it  appears  in  the  body  soon  after  its  formation." 
(p.  440.) 

When  this  formation  of  the  body  takes  place  it  does 
not  say.  For  the  purpose  of  elucidation  the  following  is 
said  : 

"  At  the  time  when  the  body  is  formed  it  becomes 
capable  of  receiving  the  soul." 

If  that  does  not  explain  the  matter,  what  follows 
explains  whence  and  from  what  the  soul  is  created  by 
God.  Here  we  again  have  a  controversy.  Some  have 
said  that  the  soul  originated  by  itself  from  the  souls  of 
the  parents,  while  others  have  said  that  it  came  from 
nothing,  directly  from  the  seed.     All  are  wrong  : 

"  God  creates  the  human  souls,  just  as  he  creates  the 
])odies,  by  force  of  the  same  blessing,  to  be  fruitful  and 
multiply,  which  he  gave  to  our  forefathers  in  the  begin- 
ning, —  he  creates  them  not  out  of  nothing,  but  out  of  the 
souls  of  the  parents.  For,  according  to  the  teaching  of 
the  church,  although  the  souls  of  men  receive  their  exist- 
ence through  creation,  the  stigma  of  the  ancestral  sin 
passes  to  them  from  the  parents,  —  and  this  could  not  be, 
if  God  created  them  from  nothing."     (pp.  441  and  442.) 

80.  The  composition  of  man.  Man  consists  of  two 
parts,  of  the  soul  and  the  body,  and  not  of  three  parts. 
As  usual,  there  comes  after  that  a  dispute  and  confirma- 
tions from  Holy  Scripture.  The  dispute  is  directed 
against  those  who  assert  that  man  consists  of  three  parts, 
of  body,  soul,  and  spirit.  That  is  not  so,  —  he  consists 
only  of  body  and  soul. 

81.  The  properties  of  the  human  soul  are  the  follow- 
ing :  "  (1)  It  is  an  independent  essence,  separate  from  the 
body,  (2)  immaterial,  simple  (spirit),  (3)  free,  and  (4) 
immortal."  *  (pp.  449-453.) 

There  follow  proofs  from  Holy  Scripture.     But  what  is 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    TnEOLOGT  205 

this  soul  of  mine  ?  What  connection  is  there  between  it 
and  the  body  ?  Where  are  the  limits  of  the  soul  and  the 
body  ?  From  the  definition  of  the  properties  of  the  soul 
directly  result  these  questions.  But  there  are  no  answers 
for  them.  What  is  so  provoking  in  this  teaching  is  that 
it  compels  you  to  put  questions  to  which  there  can  be 
no  answers.  As  the  definition  of  the  attributes  of  God 
have  abased  and  destroyed  in  me  the  conception  of 
God,  even  so  the  definitions  of  the  properties  of  the  soul 
and  its  origin  abase  and  lower  in  me  the  conception  of 
the  soul.  God  and  the  soul  I  know  as  well  as  I  know 
infinity,  not  by  means  of  definitions,  but  in  an  entirely 
different  way.  The  definitions  destroy  this  knowledge  in 
me.  Just  as  I  know  beyond  any  doubt  that  there  is  an 
infinity  in  number,  so  I  know  that  there  is  a  God  and 
that  I  have  a  soul.  But  this  knowledge  is  unquestion- 
able for  me  only  because  I  was  inevitably  brought  to  it. 
To  the  certainty  of  the  infinity  in  number  I  was  brought 
by  addition.  To  the  certainty  of  the  laiowledge  of  God  I 
was  brought  by  the  question,  "  Whence  am  I  ?  "  To  the 
certainty  of  the  soul  I  was  brought  by  the  question, 
"  What  am  I  ? "  And  I  know  beyond  any  doubt  that 
there  is  an  infinity  in  number,  and  that  God  exists,  and 
that  my  soul  exists,  when  I  am  led  to  this  knowledge  by 
means  of  the  simplest  questions. 

To  two  I  add  one,  and  still  one,  and  again  and  again,  or 
I  break  a  stick  into  two,  and  again  into  two,  and  again 
and  again,  and  I  cannot  help  recognizing  infinity.  I  was 
born  from  my  mother,  and  she  from  my  grandmother,  and 
she  from  my  great-gi'andmother,  and  the  last  from  whom  ? 
And  I  inevitably  come  to  God.  My  hands  are  not  I ;  my 
feet  are  not  I ;  my  head  —  not  I,  my  feelings  —  not  I, 
even  my  thoughts  —  not  I ;  what,  then,  am  I  ?  1  =  1, 
I  =  my  soul.  But  when  I  am  told  that  an  infinite  num- 
ber is  first  or  not  first,  even  or  odd,  I  no  longer  com- 
prehend  a  thing,  and  even   renounce  my  conception  of 


206  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

infinity.  The  same  do  I  experience  when  I  am  told  about 
God,  his  essence,  his  attributes,  his  person ;  I  no  longer 
understand  God.  I  do  not  believe  in  God.  The  same, 
when  I  am  told  about  my  soul  and  its  properties.  I  no 
longer  understand  about  it,  and  do  not  beheve  in  my  soul. 
No  matter  from  what  side  I  may  approach  God,  it  will  be 
the  same :  the  beginning  of  my  thought,  of  my  reason,  is 
God  ;  the  beginning  of  my  love  is  he  again ;  the  begin- 
ning of  materiality  is  he  again.  But  when  I  am  told 
that  God  has  fourteen  attributes,  mind  and  will,  persons, 
or  that  God  is  good  and  just,  or  that  God  created  the 
world  in  six  days,  I  no  longer  believe  in  God.  The  same 
is  true  of  the  conception  of  the  soul.  When  I  turn  to  my 
striving  after  truth,  I  know^  that  this  striving  after  truth 
is  the  immaterial  foundation  of  myself,  my  soul ;  when  I 
turn  to  the  feeling  of  my  love  of  the  good,  I  know  that  it 
is  my  soul  which  loves.  But  the  moment  I  am  told  that 
this  soul  was  placed  in  me  by  God  from  the  souls  of  my 
parents,  when  I  was  in  the  womb  of  my  mother,  and 
my  body  was  able  to  receive  it,  I  do  not  believe  in  the 
soul  and  ask,  as  ask  the  materialists  :  "  Show  me  that  of 
which  you  speak !     Where  is  it  ? " 


VII. 

82.  The  image  and  likeness  of  God  in  man.  The 
image  and  likeness  of  God,  the  purest  spirit.  According 
to  the  teaching  of  the  church,  the  Theology  says,  as  it 
said  before,  that  this  purest  spirit  has  mind  and  will,  and 
so  the  image  and  likeness  of  God  means  mind  and  will. 
But  mind  and  will,  as  we  have  seen,  were  ascribed  quite 
arbitrarily  to  God.  In  the  whole  book  there  is  not  the 
shghtest  hint  why  we  should  assume  mind  and  will  in 
God.  So  it  turns  out  that  in  the  division  about  God  the 
division  of  the  pure  spirit  into  mind  and  will  was  intro- 
duced, not  because  there  were  any  causes  for  that  in  the 
concept  of  God  itself,  but  because  man,  comprehending 
himself  as  mind  and  will,  has  arbitrarily  transferred  this 
division  to  God. 

Now,  in  the  division  about  man,  in  explaining  the 
word  "  he  was  made  in  the  image  and  after  the  likeness  of 
God,"  it  says  that  since  the  attributes  of  God  are  divided  into 
mind  and  will,  the  word  image  means  mind,  while  likeness 
means  will.  But  the  concepts  of  mind  and  will  have 
been  transferred  to  God  only  because  we  find  them  in 
man  !  Let  not  the  reader  think  that  I  have  anywhere 
omitted  the  definition  of  God's  mind  and  will.  It  does 
not  exist.  It  is  introduced  as  something  known  in  the 
definition  of  the  attributes  of  God,  and  now  the  attributes 
of  man  are  deduced  from  it.  In  this  article  we  have  the 
following  exposition  : 

"  To  be  in  the  image  of  God  is  natural  for  us  according 
to  our  creation ;  but  to  become  after  the  likeness  of  God 

207 


208  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

depends  on  our  will.  This  dependence  on  our  will  exists 
in  us  only  potentially ;  it  is  acquired  by  us  in  fact  only 
through  our  activity.  If  God,  intending  to  create  us,  had 
not  said  beforehand,  '  We  will  make  '  and  '  after  our  like- 
ness,' and  if  he  had  not  given  us  the  power  to  be  after 
his  likeness,  we  could  not  by  our  own  force  be  after  the 
likeness  of  God.  But  as  it  is  we  received  at  creation 
the  power  to  be  like  God.  But,  having  given  us  this  pos- 
sibility, God  has  left  it  to  us  to  be  the  actors  of  our  own 
likeness  with  God,  in  order  to  be  worthy  of  an  acceptable 
reward  for  our  activity,  and  that  we  may  not  be  like  soul- 
less representations  made  by  artists."     (p.  458.) 

83.  Man's  destination  is  as  follows  : 

"  (1)  In  relation  to  God  this  destination  of  man  con- 
sists in  this,  that  he  shall  unalterably  remain  true  to  that 
high  bond  or  union  with  God  (religion),  to  which  the  All- 
good  has  called  him  at  the  very  creation,  while  stamping 
upon  him  his  image  ;  in  order  that,  in  consequence  of  this 
calling,  he  may  constantly  strive  after  his  Prototype  with 
all  the  forces  of  his  rational,  free  soul,  that  is,  in  order  that 
he  may  know  his  Creator,  and  glorify  him,  and  live  in 
moral  union  vrith  him.  (p.  459.)  (2)  In  man's  relation 
to  himself,  his  destination  is  that  he,  being  created  in  the 
image  of  God  with  moral  powers,  shall  constantly  try  to 
develop  and  perfect  these  powers  by  exercising  them  in 
good  deeds,  and,  in  this  manner,  shall  more  and  more 
become  like  his  Prototype.  For  this  reason  the  Lord  has 
more  than  once  commanded  in  the  Old  Testament :  Ye 
shall  be  holy  ;  for  I  am  holy,  the  Lord  your  God  (Lev.  xi. 
44 ;  xix,  2  ;  xx.  7),  and  now  we  hear  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament from  our  Saviour :  Be  ye  therefore  perfect,  even  as 
your  Father  which  is  in  heaven  is  perfect  (Matt.  v.  48). 
However,  this  purpose  of  man  is  essentially  not  to  be  dis- 
tinguished from  the  first ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  included 
in  it  and  serves  as  a  necessary  condition  for  its  attain- 
ment."    (pp.  460  and  461.) 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  209 

Consequently  it  is  the  same. 

"  (3)  Finally,  the  destination  of  man,  in  relation  to  the 
whole  Nature  which  surrounds  him,  is  clearly  determined 
in  the  words  of  the  tri-personal  Creator  himself  :  Let  us 
make  man  in  our  image  and  after  our  likeness  :  and  let 
him  have  dominion  over  the  fish  of  the  sea,  and  over  the 
fowl  of  the  air,  and  over  the  beasts,  and  over  the  cattle, 
and  over  all  the  earth,  and  over  every  creeping  thing  that 
creepeth  upon  the  earth." 

The  third  is  evidently  not  a  destination,  but  a  conve- 
nience ;  but  here  it  is  included  as  a  destination.  There 
turns  out  to  be  one  destination  :  to  remain  true  to  the 
union  with  God. 

84.  The  ability  of  the  first-born  man  for  his  destination, 
or  perfection.  "  In  predestining  man  for  such  a  high  pur- 
pose, the  Lord  God  created  him  fully  capable  of  attaining 
this  aim,  that  is,  perfect." 

85.  The  special  cooperation  of  God  with  the  first-born 
man  in  the  attainment  of  his  destination. 

In  order  to  attain  this  high  purpose,  the  preservation  of 
the  union  with  God,  God  considered  it  necessary  to  coop- 
erate with  the  man.  The  first  cooperation  con-sisted  in 
this  : 

"  God  himself  planted  a  garden  eastward  in  Eden  as  a 
habitation  for  man  ;  and  there  he  put  the  man  whom  he 
had  formed  (Gen.  ii.  8).  This  was,  according  to  the 
words  of  St.  John  Damascene,  as  it  were,  a  royal  house, 
where  man,  living,  might  have  passed  a  happy  and  blissful 
life  —  it  was  the  abiding-place  of  all  joys  and  pleasures  : 
for  Eden  denotes  enjoyment.  The  air  in  it  was  perfectly 
pure.  It  was  surrounded  by  bright  air,  the  thinnest  and 
the  purest ;  it  was  adorned  with  blooming  plants,  filled 
with  perfume  and  light,  and  surpassed  every  representa- 
tion of  sensual  beauty  and  goodness.  It  was  truly  a 
divine  country,  a  worthy  habitation,  created  in  the  image 
of  God."     (p.  467.) 


210  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

Here  it  is  proved  that  Paradise  is  to  be  understood 
directly  as  a  garden,  as  described,  and  we  may  only  pre- 
sume that  Adam,  besides  the  body,  enjoyed  also  his  soul. 
The  second  cooperation  with  Adam  was  this,  that  God 
visited  him  in  Paradise  (p.  468).  The  third  cooperation 
consisted  in  this,  that  God  gave  Adam  his  grace.  What 
grace  is,  is  not  explained  here.  The  fourth  cooperation 
consisted  in  tliis,  that  God  planted  in  the  garden  the  tree 
of  life  ;  and  here  we  suddenly  get  the  explanation  that 
this  tree  of  Hfe  was  that  very  grace.  The  tree  of  life  was 
the  cause  why  Adam  did  not  die.  The  fifth  cooperation 
was  this,  that  for  the  "  exercise  and  development  of  the 
physical  forces  God  commanded  Adam  to  make  and  keep 
the  Paradise  (Gen.  ii.  15) ;  for  the  exercise  and  develop- 
ment of  his  mental  powers  and  the  powers  of  speech,  he 
himself  brought  to  Adam  all  the  beasts  to  see  what  he 
would  call  them  (Gen.  ii.  19) ;  for  the  exercise  and  strength- 
ening of  his  moral  powers  in  what  was  good,  he  gave  a 
certain  command  to  Adam,  not  to  eat  of  the  fruit  of  the 
tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil.  And  the  Lord 
God  commanded  the  man,  saying.  Of  every  tree  of  the 
garden  thou  mayest  freely  eat ;  but  of  the  tree  of  the 
knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  ye  shall  not  eat  of  it :  for  in 
the  day  that  ye  eat  thereof,  ye  shall  surely  die."  (pp.  472 
and  473.) 

If  anybody  imagines  that  anything  essential  is  added  or 
omitted  here,  or  in  any  way  transformed,  let  him  read  the 
book  itself  !  I  am  trying  to  cite  the  most  essential  and 
intelligible  passages.  The  Theology  represents  the  ques- 
tion of  Adam's  fall  in  the  most  remarkable  manner  and 
insists  that  it  is  not  possible  and  not  allowable  to  under- 
stand it  in  any  other  way.  According  to  the  church 
teaching  God  has  created  man  for  a  certain  destination, 
and  has  created  him  quite  capable  of  attaining  his  destina- 
tion ;  it  says  that  he  has  created  him  perfect  and  has 
shown  him  every  kind  of  cooperation  for  the  purpose  of 


CRITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  211 

attaining  his  ends.  The  command  about  not  eating  the 
fruit  was  also  a  cooperation. 

86.  The  command  given  by  God  to  the  first  man,  — 
its  necessity  and  meaning.  Of  the  command  about  not 
eating  from  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil  the 
Theology  says  (1)  that  this  command  was  very  necessary, 
(2)  that  in  this  command  the  whole  law  is  contained,  (3) 
that  the  command  was  an  easy  one  and  that  it  was  guarded 
by  a  terrible  threat.  And,  in  spite  of  it  all,  man  fell  and 
did  not  reach  his  destination.  One  would  think  that  it 
would  be  necessary  to  clear  up  this  contradiction,  and  one 
involuntarily  waits  for  some  interpretation  of  this  whole 
remarkable  event.  But,  on  the  contrary,  the  Theology 
bars  the  way  to  all  interpretation  and  carefully  preserves 
it  in  all  its  coarseness.  It  proves  that  it  is  not  possible 
and  not  allowable  to  understand  the  meaning  of  the  second 
chapter  of  Genesis,  about  the  Paradise  and  the  trees 
planted  in  it,  in  any  explanatory  way,  but  that  it  is  nec- 
essary to  understand  it  as  Theodoret  understood  it : 

"'The  Divine  Scripture  says,'  asserts  the  blessed 
Theodoret,  'that  the  tree  of  life  and  the  tree  of  the 
knowledge  of  good  and  evil  grew  out  from  the  ground  ; 
consequently  they  are  by  their  natures  like  any  other 
plants.  Just  as  the  rood  is  a  common  tree,  but  receives 
the  name  of  a  saving  cross  on  account  of  the  salvation 
which  w^e  receive  through  faith  in  him  who  was  crucified 
upon  it ;  even  thus  these  trees  are  common  plants  that 
grew  out  from  the  ground,  but,  by  God's  determination, 
one  of  them  is  called  the  tree  of  life,  and  the  other,  —  since 
it  has  served  as  a  tool  for  the  knowledge  of  sin,  —  the 
tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil.  The  latter  was 
proposed  to  Adam  as  an  opportunity  for  an  exploit,  and 
the  tree  of  life  as  a  certain  reward  for  the  keeping  of  the 
command.'  (b)  This  tree  is  called  the  tree  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  good  and  evil,  not  because  it  had  the  power  of 
imparting  to  our  first  parents  the  knowledge  of  good  and 


212  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

evil,  which  they  did  not  have  before,  but  because,  by  their 
eating  from  the  forbidden  tree  they  were  to  find  out 
experimentally,  and  did  find  out,  all  the  distinction 
between  good  and  evil,  '  between  the  good,'  as  the  blessed 
St.  Augustine  remarks,  '  from  which  they  fell,  and  the 
evil  into  which  they  fell,'  a  thought  which  is  unanimously 
taught  by  all  the  teachers  of  the  church,  (c)  This  tree, 
according  to  the  opinion  of  some  of  the  teachers  of  the 
church,  was  by  no  means  destructive  and  venomous  in  its 
nature ;  on  the  contrary,  it  was  good,  hke  all  the  other 
divine  knowledge,  but  it  was  chosen  by  God  only  as  a 
tool  for  trying  man,  and  was  forbidden,  perhaps,  because 
it  was  too  early  yet  for  the  new-born  man  to  eat  of  its 
fruits. 

" '  The  tree  of  knowledge,'  says  St.  Gregory  the  Divine, 
'  was  planted  in  the  beginning  without  any  evil  purpose 
and  was  not  forbidden  through  envy  (let  not  the  wrestlers 
against  God  open  their  lips  and  imitate  the  serpent !  )  ;  on 
the  contrary,  it  was  good  for  those  who  used  it  in  proper 
time  (for  this  tree,  according  to  my  opinion,  was  the 
contemplation  to  which  only  those  may  proceed  who  are 
perfected  by  experience),  but  it  was  not  good  for  simple 
people  and  for  those  who  were  immoderate  in  their  desire, 
even  as  perfect  food  is  not  useful  for  feeble  people  who 
need  milk.'  — '  The  tree  is  good,'  blessed  St.  Augustine, 
who  understands  the  forbidden  tree  in  a  sensuous  sense, 
says  to  Adam,  in  the  person  of  God,  '  but  do  not  touch 
it !  Why  ?  Because  I  am  the  Lord,  and  you  are  a  slave  : 
that  is  the  whole  reason.  If  you  consider  this  insufficient, 
it  means  that  you  do  not  wish  to  be  a  slave.  What  is 
there  more  useful  for  you  than  to  be  under  the  power 
of  the  Lord  ?  How  will  you  be  under  the  power  of  the 
Lord,  if  you  are  not  under  his  command  ? '  " 

Thus  the  church  understands  it,  and  thus  it  commands 
you  to  understand  it.  The  fact  that  the  tree  is  called  the 
tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil;  the  fact  that 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  213 

the  serpent  says  to  the  woman :  You  will  know  good  and 
evil ;  the  fact  that  God  himself  says  (Gen.  iii.  22),  that, 
having  eaten  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree,  Adam  is  become  as 
one  of  us,  to  know  good  and  evil,  —  all  that  we  must 
forget  and  we  must  think  about  the  profound  account  in 
the  Book  of  Genesis  in  a  most  inexact  and  absurd  manner  ; 
and  all  that,  not  in  order  to  explain  anything  in  this 
account,  but  that  there  should  not  be  left  any  sense  m  it 
except  the  most  apparent  and  coarse  contradiction  that 
God  was  doing  everything  for  the  purpose  of  attaining  one 
end,  while  something  different  resulted. 

87.  According  to  the  doctrine  of  the  church,  the  first 
man  lived  in  the  garden  and  was  blessed.  This  is  told  as 
follows :  Adam  and  Eve  lived  in  bliss  in  the  garden,  "  and 
there  is  no  doubt  that  this  bliss  of  the  first  men  would 
not  only  not  have  diminished  in  time,  but  would  have 
increased  more  and  more  in  proportion  with  their  greater 
perfection,  if  they  had  kept  the  command  which  the  Lord 
had  given  them  in  the  beginning.  Unfortunately  for  our 
progenitors  themselves  as  well  as  for  their  descendants, 
they  violated  this  command  and  thus  destroyed  their 
bliss." 

88.  The  manner  and  causes  of  the  fall  of  our  first 
parents.  But  the  serpent  came  (the  serpent  is  the  devil, 
—  that  is  proved  by  Holy  Scripture)  and  Adam  was 
tempted  and  fell,  and  lost  his  bliss. 

89.  The  importance  of  the  sin  of  our  first  parents. 
This  sin  is  important  because  (a)  it  is  disobedience ;  (b) 
the  command  is  easy ;  (c)  God  had  benefited  them  and 
only  demanded  obedience ;  (d)  they  had  the  grace,  and 
needed  only  to  wish ;  (e)  in  that  one  sin  there  were  many 
other  sins,  and  (/)  the  consequences  of  this  sin  were  very 
great  for  Adam  and  for  all  posterity. 

90.  The  consequences  of  the  fall  of  our  first  parents 
were  in  the  soul:  (1)  the  disruption  of  the  union  with 
God,  the  loss  of  grace,  and  spiritual  death. 


214  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

All  this  is  proved  by  Holy  Scripture,  but  nothing  is 
said  about  what  disruption  of  the  union  with  God  is, 
what  grace  is,  what  spiritual  death  is.  It  would  be 
particularly  desirable  to  know  what  is  meant  by  spiritual 
death,  as  distinguished  from  corporeal  death,  since  above 
it  was  said  that  the  soul  was  immortal.  Other  conse- 
quences of  the  fall :  (2)  dimming  of  the  intellect,  (3) 
proclivity  toward  evil  rather  than  toward  good.  But 
what  difference  there  was  between  Adam  before  and  after 
the  fall  in  relation  to  the  proclivity  toward  evil  it  does 
not  say.  Before  the  fall  there  was  also  a  greater  pro- 
clivity toward  evil  than  toward  good,  if  Adam,  as  we  are 
told  in  Art.  89,  coraitted  an  evil  act  when  everything  drew 
him  on  to  the  good.  (4)  The  mutilation  of  the  image  of 
God.     Mutilation  means : 

"  If  a  coin,  which  has  upon  itself  the  image  of  a  king, 
is  spoiled,  the  gold  loses  its  value  and  the  image  is  of  no 
service :  the  same  happened  with  Adam." 

For  the  body  the  consequences  were:  (1)  diseases,  (2) 
bodily  death.  For  Adam  it  was :  (1)  expulsion  from 
Paradise,  (2)  the  loss  of  his  dominion  over  the  animals, 
(3)  the  curse  of  the  serpent,  that  is,  man  had  to  work  to 
earn  his  sustenance. 

We  are  all  used  to  this  story,  which  we  have  briejfly 
learned  in  our  childhood,  and  are  all  accustomed  not  to 
think  of  it,  not  to  analyze  it,  and  to  connect  with  it  an 
indistinct,  poetical  representation,  and  therefore  the 
detailed  repetition  of  this  story  with  the  confirmation  of 
its  coarse  meaning  and  seeming  proofs  of  its  correctness, 
as  expounded  in  the  Theology,  involuntarily  strikes  us  as 
something  new  and  unexpectedly  coarse. 

The  representation  of  God  and  of  the  garden  and  of 
the  fruits  makes  us  doubt  the  truth  of  the  whole,  and  for 
him  who  assumes  justice  there  arises  involuntarily  the 
simple  childish  (question  as  to  why  the  omniscient, 
almighty,  and  all-good  God  did  everything  in  such  a  way 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  215 

that  the  man  who  was  created  by  him  should  perish,  and 
why  all  his  posterity  should  perish.  And  every  person 
who  will  stop  to  think  of  this  contradiction,  will  obviously 
wish  to  read  the  passage  in  Holy  Scripture,  on  which  it  is 
based.  And  he  who  will  do  so  will  be  terribly  surprised 
at  that  striking  unceremoniousness  with  which  the  church 
commentators  treat  the  texts.  It  is  enough  to  read  carefully 
the  first  chapters  of  Genesis  and  the  church  exposition  of 
the  fall  of  man,  in  order  to  become  convinced  that  two 
different  stories  are  told  by  the  Bible  and  by  the  Theology. 

According  to  the  church  interpretation  it  turns  out 
that  Adam  was  permitted  to  eat  from  the  tree  of  hfe  and 
that  the  first  pair  was  immortal,  but  not  only  is  this  not 
said  in  the  Bible,  but  the  very  opposite  is  mentioned  in 
verse  22  of  Chapter  III,,  where  it  says :  lest  Adam  put 
forth  his  hand,  and  eat  of  the  tree  of  life,  and  live  for 
ever.  According  to  the  church  interpretation  the  serpent 
is  the  devil,  but  nothing  of  the  kind  is  said  in  the  Bible, 
nor  could  anything  be  said,  because  no  idea  about  the 
devil  is  given  in  the  Book  of  Genesis,  but  it  says  there : 
the  serpent  was  more  subtile  than  any  beast.  According 
to  the  church  interpretation  it  turns  out  that  the  eating  of 
the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil  was  a  calamity 
for  men  ;  but  according  to  the  Bible  it  was  a  benefit  for 
men,  and  thus  the  whole  history  of  the  fall  of  Adam  is 
an  invention  of  the  theologians  and  nothing  like  it  is 
mentioned  in  the  Bible. 

From  the  story  of  the  Bible  it  does  not  follow  that  the 
men  ate  from  the  tree  of  life  and  were  immortal,  but 
the  opposite  is  said  in  verse  22,  nor  does  it  say  there  that 
the  evil  devil  tempted  man  ;  on  the  contrary,  what  is  said 
is  that  the  most  subtile  of  beasts  taught  him  that.  Thus 
the  two  chief  foundations  of  the  whole  story  about  the 
sinful  fall,  namely,  the  immortality  of  Adam  in  Paradise 
and  the  devil,  are  invented  by  the  theologians  in  direct 
opposition  to  the  text. 


216  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

The  only  connected  sense  of  the  whole  story  according 
to  the  Book  of  Genesis,  which  is  exactly  the  opposite  of 
the  church  account,  is  this :  God  made  man,  but  wished 
to  leave  him  such  as  the  animals  were,  who  do  not  know 
the  difference  between  good  and  evil,  and  so  prohibited 
them  from  eating  of  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good 
and  evil.  At  the  same  time,  to  frighten  man,  God  de- 
ceived him,  saying  that  he  would  die  as  soon  as  he  ate 
of  it.  But  man,  aided  by  wisdom  (the  serpent),  dis- 
covered the  deception  of  God,  found  out  the  good  and  the 
evil,  and  did  not  die.  But  God  was  frightened  by  it  and 
barred  his  way  from  the  tree  of  life,  to  which,  to  judge 
from  the  same  fear  of  God  lest  man  should  eat  of  that 
fruit,  we  nuist  assume,  according  to  the  sense  of  the  story, 
man  will  find  his  way,  as  he  has  found  his  way  to  the 
knowledge  of  good  and  evil. 

Whether  this  story  is  good  or  bad  is  another  matter, 
but  thus  it  is  told  in  the  Bible.  God,  in  relation  to  man 
in  this  story,  is  the  same  God  as  Zeus  in  relation  to 
Prometheus.  Prometheus  steals  the  fire,  Adam  the  knowl- 
edge of  good  and  evil.  The  God  of  these  first  chapters  is 
not  the  Christian  God,  not  even  the  God  of  the  Prophets 
and  of  Moses,  the  God  who  loves  men,  but  a  God  who  is 
jealous  of  his  power,  a  God  who  is  afraid  of  men.  And 
it  is  the  story  about  this  God  that  the  Theology  had  to 
harmonize  with  the  dogma  of  the  redemption,  and  so  a 
jealous  and  evil  God  is  combined  with  God  the  Father,  of 
whom  Christ  taught.  Only  this  reflection  gives  a  key  to 
the  blasphemy  of  the  chapter.  If  we  do  not  know  what 
it  is  all  needed  for,  we  cannot  understand  why  it  was 
necessary  to  misinterpret,  contort  (directly  departing  from 
the  text)  the  simplest,  most  naive,  and  profound  story, 
and  to  make  of  it  a  conglomeration  of  contradictions  and 
absurdities  But  let  us  suppose  that  the  story  is  correct 
as  told  by  the  Theology  :  what  follows  from  it  ? 


VIII. 

91.  The  descent  of  the  sin  of  the  first  parents  to  the 
whole  human  race  :  prefatory  remarks.  Adam's  fall  was 
the  cause  of  the  original  sin.  The  exposition  of  the 
original  sin  is  preceded  by  two  different  opinions.  Some, 
the  rationalists,  regard  original  sin  as  nonsense  and  assume 
that  diseases,  sorrows,  and  death  are  the  properties  of 
human  nature,  and  that  man  is  born  innocent.  "  Others, 
the  Eeformers,  fall  into  the  opposite  extreme  by  exaggerat- 
ing too  much  the  consequences  of  the  original  sin  in  us : 
according  to  this  teaching,  the  sin  of  our  iirst  parents 
entirely  abolished  freedom  in  man,  and  his  divine  image, 
and  all  his  spiritual  powers,  so  that  the  nature  of  man 
became  tainted  by  sin :  everything  which  he  may  wish, 
everything  which  he  may  do,  is  a  sin ;  his  very  virtues 
are  sins,  and  he  is  positively  unfit  for  any  good.  The 
first  false  teaching  indicated  above,  the  Orthodox  Church 
rejects  by  its  doctrine  of  the  actuality  in  us  of  the  original 
sin  with  all  its  consequences  (that  is,  original  sin  taken  in 
its  broad  sense) ;  the  latter  it  rejects  by  its  doctrine  about 
these  consequences." 

As  always,  there  is  an  exposition  in  the  form  of  a 
heretical  teaching  which  cannot  be  understood  otherwise 
by  any  man  in  his  senses.  The  fact  that  all  men  are  by 
their  natures  subject  to  diseases  and  death,  and  that  babes 
are  innocent,  is  represented  in  the  form  of  a  heresy,  and 
an  extreme  heresy  at  that.  Another  extreme  is  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Reformers.  The  church  teaches  the  middle 
way,  and  this  middle  way  is  supposed  to  be  this,  that  by 

217 


218  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

original  sin  is  to  be  understood  "  that  transgression  of 
God's  command,  that  departure  of  human  nature  from  the 
law  of  God,  and  consequently  from  its  aims,  which  was 
committed  by  our  first  parents  in  Paradise  and  which 
from  them  passed  over  to  us.  '  Original  sin,'  we  read  in 
the  Orthodox  profession  of  the  Catholic  and  Apostolic 
Eastern  Church,  '  is  a  transgression  of  the  law  of  God, 
given  in  Paradise  to  our  forefather  Adam.  This  original 
sin  passed  from  Adam  to  the  whole  human  race,  for  we 
then  were  all  in  Adam,  and  thus  through  the  one  Adam 
the  sin  has  spread  to  all  of  us.  For  tliis  reason  we  are 
begotten  and  born  with  this  sin.'  The  only  dif!erence  is 
that  in  Adam  this  departure  from  the  law  of  God,  and 
consequently  from  its  destination,  was  free  and  arbitrary, 
but  in  us  it  is  inherited  and  necessary :  we  are  born  with 
a  nature  which  has  departed  from  the  law  of  God ;  in 
Adam  it  was  a  personal  sin,  a  sin  in  the  strict  sense  of  the 
word,  —  in  us  it  is  not  a  personal  sin,  not  really  a  sin, 
but  only  a  sinfulness  of  our  nature  as  derived  from  our 
parents ;  Adam  sinned,  that  is,  he  freely  violated  the  law 
of  God  and  thus  became  a  sinner,  that  is,  caused  his 
whole  nature  to  deviate  from  the  law  of  God,  and  conse- 
quently became  personally  guilty  toward  God,- — but  we 
have  not  sinned  personally  with  Adam,  but  have  become 
sinners  with  him  and  through  him  :  P)y  one  man's  dis- 
obedience many  were  made  sinners  (Eom.  v.  19);  receiv- 
ing from  him  our  sinful  nature  we  appear  in  the  world  as 
children  of  the  wrath  of  God  (Eph.  ii.  3). 

"  Under  the  consequences  of  the  original  sin  the  church 
understands  those  consequences  which  the  sin  of  our  first 
parents  produced  immediately  upon  them,  and  which  pass 
over  from  them  to  us,  such  as  the  dimming  of  the  intel- 
lect, the  abasement  of  the  will,  and  the  proclivity  to  do 
evil,  diseases  of  the  body,  death,  and  so  forth,  (pp.  493 
and  494.) 

"  This  distinction  of  the  original  sin  and  of  its  conse- 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  219 

quences  must  be  firmly  borne  in  mind,  especially  in  cer- 
tain cases,  in  order  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Orthodox 
Church  may  be  properly  understood."     (p.  494.) 

92.  The  actuality  of  the  original  sin,  its  universality 
and  manner  of  dissemination.  "  The  sin  of  our  first 
parents,  the  Orthodox  Church  teaches,  with  its  conse- 
quences, spread  from  Adam  and  Eve  to  all  their  posterity 
by  means  of  natural  birth  and,  consequently,  exists  un- 
questionably."    (p.  496.) 

All  that  is  proved  by  Holy  Scripture,  for  example  like 
this :  "  Who  can  bring  a  clean  thing  out  of  an  unclean  ? 
not  one,  even  though  he  hath  lived  but  one  day  upon 
earth  (Job  xiv.  4,  5).  Here,  evidently,  an  unclean  thing 
is  meant,  from  which  no  man  is  free,  and  that,  too,  from 
his  birth.  What  is  this  unclean  thing  ?  Since,  accord- 
ing to  Job's  description,  it  appears  as  the  cause  of  the 
calamities  of  human  hfe  (verses  1,  2)  and  subjects  man 
to  the  judgment  of  God  (verse  3),  we  must  assume  that 
a  moral  uncleanness  is  meant  and  not  a  physical  one, 
which  is  the  consequence  of  the  moral  uncleanness  and 
cannot  in  itself  make  man  subject  to  the  judgment  before 
God,  —  what  is  meant  is  the  sinfulness  of  our  nature, 
which  passes  over  to  all  of  us  from  our  first  parents.  To 
the  passages  of  the  second  kind  belong:  (1)  the  words 
of  the  Saviour  in  his  conversation  with  Nicodemus : 
Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  thee.  Except  a  man  be  born 
of  water  and  of  the  Spirit,  he  cannot  enter  into  the  king- 
dom of  heaven.  That  which  is  born  of  the  flesh  is  flesh ; 
and  that  which  is  born  of  the  Spirit  is  spirit  (John  iii.  5, 
6)."     (p.  498.) 

It  is  also  confirmed  by  Tradition : 

"  For  according  to  this  rule  of  faith  the  babes,  who 
have  not  yet  committed  any  sin,  are  baptized  indeed  for 
the  remission  of  sins,  that  through  the  new  birth  there 
may  be  purified  in  them  w^hat  they  have  received  from 
their  old  birth.     Utterances  of  the  individual  teachers  of 


220  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

the  church,  who  Hved  before  the  appearance  of  the  Pela- 
gian heresy,  such  as  (a)  Justin :  '  It  has  pleased  Christ  to 
be  born  and  to  suffer  death,  not  because  he  himself  had 
any  need  of  it,  but  on  account  of  the  human  race,  which 
through  Adam  (ciTro  tov  'ASa/x)  was  subject  to  death  and 
the  temptation  of  the  serpent,'  (b)  Irenseus :  '  In  the 
first  Adam  we  offended  God,  by  not  fulfilling  his  com- 
mand ;  in  the  second  Adam  we  made  peace  with  him, 
becoming  submissive  even  unto  death ;  we  were  under 
obligation  not  to  any  one  else,  but  to  him  whose  com- 
mand we  had  violated  from  the  beginning.'  (c)  Tertul- 
han :  '  Man  was  from  the  start  seduced  by  the  devil  to 
violate  the  command  of  God,  and  so  is  subject  to  death ; 
after  that  the  whole  human  race  was  made  by  him  a 
participant  (traduoem)  in  his  judgment,' "  and  so  forth, 
(p.  500.) 

"  We  do  not  quote  similar  utterances  of  many  other 
teachers  of  the  church,  who  lived  at  that  period,  as  what 
we  have  adduced  is  sufficient  to  show  the  whole  sense- 
lessness of  the  Pelagians,  both  the  ancient  and  the 
modern,  who  assert  that  St.  Augustine  invented  the  doc- 
trine of  original  sin,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  to  cause 
the  recognition  of  the  whole  justice  of  the  words  of  the 
blessed  St.  Augustine  to  one  of  the  Pelagians :  '  I  have 
not  invented  original  sin,  in  which  the  Catholic  Church 
has  believed  since  olden  times ;  but  you,  who  reject  this 
dogma,  are  no  doubt  a  new  heretic'  Finally,  of  the 
actuality  of  original  sin,  which  has  come  dowT^i  to  us 
from  our  first  ancestors,  we  may  convince  ourselves  in 
the  light  of  sound  reason,  on  the  basis  of  incontestable 
experience."     (p.  502.) 

What  convinces  us  of  it  is  the  fact  "  (a)  that  within 
us  there  exists  a  constant  struggle  between  the  spirit  and 
the  flesh,  between  the  reason  and  the  passions,  between 
the  striving  after  tlie  good  and  the  attraction  of  the  evil ; 
(h)  in  this  struggle  the  victory  is  nearly  always  on  the 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  221 

side  of  the  latter:  the  flesh  vanquishes  in  us  the  spirit, 
the  passions  rule  over  our  reason,  the  attractions  of  evil 
over})ower  the  striving  after  the  good ;  we  love  the  good 
according  to  our  nature,  wish  for  it,  and  rejoice  in  it,  but 
tind  no  strength  in  us  to  do  good ;  we  do  not  love  the 
evil  according  to  our  nature,  and  yet  are  irresistibly 
drawn  to  it;  (c)  the  habit  of  what  is  good  and  holy  is 
ac(|uired  by  us  after  mucli  elibrt  and  very  slowly ;  but 
the  liabit  of  doing  wrong  is  acquired  without  the  least 
effort  and  exceedingly  fast,  and  vice  versa  ;  (d)  it  is  ex- 
ceedingly difhcult  for  us  to  discard  a  vice,  to  vanquish  in 
us  a  passion,  no  matter  how  insignificant ;  but  in  order 
to  change  a  virtue  which  we  have  acquired  after  many 
exploits,  the  smallest  temptation  is  fiecpieutly  sufficient. 
The  same  predominance  of  evil  over  good  in  the  human 
race,  that  we  observe  now,  has  been  observed  by  others 
at  all  times." 

Evidences  from  the  Old  Testament  and  the  Epistles 
that  the  world  is  merged  in  evil.  And  farther :  "  Whence 
comes  this  discord  in  human  nature?  Whence  this  un- 
natural struggle  of  the  forces  in  it  and  that  striving,  that 
unnatural  predominance  of  the  flesh  over  the  spirit,  of  the 
passions  over  reason,  that  unnatural  inclination  toward 
evil,  wliicb  outweighs  the  natural  inchnation  toward  the 
good  ?  All  the  explanations  which  men  have  thought  of 
for  this  are  inconclusive,  or  even  irrational ;  the  only 
explanation  which  fully  satisfies  us  is  the  one  revelation 
offers  us  in  its  teaching  about  the  original,  ancestral  sin." 

Then  follows  an  analysis  of  these  supposed  explana- 
tions which  men  have  invented.  On  the  question  of  the 
original  sin,  of  the  sources  of  evil  in  the  world,  and  of 
those  explanations  which  the  church  offers,  we  must 
dwell  at  a  greater  length. 

Among  the  number  of  the  dogmas  of  the  church,  which 
have  already  been  analyzed  in  the  preceding  parts  and 
which  will  be  analyzed  farther  on,  we  meet  with  dogmas 


222  CRITIQUE    OP    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

about  the  most  fundamental  questions  of  humanity,  about 
God,  about  the  beginning  of  the  world,  about  man,  by 
the  side  of  perfectly  useless,  perfectly  senseless  proposi- 
tions, such  as  the  dogma  about  the  angels  and  the  devils, 
and  so  forth,  and  so  we  will  omit  what  is  useless  and  will 
necessarily  dwell  on  the  important  ones. 

The  dogma  about  the  original  sin,  that  is,  about  the 
beginning  of  evil,  touches  a  fundamental  question,  and  so 
we  must  attentively  analyze  what  the  church  has  to  say 
about  it.  According  to  the  teaching  of  the  church,  the 
struggle  which  man  feels  in  himself  between  the  evil  and 
the  good,  and  the  proclivity  to  do  evil,  which  the  church 
asserts  as  an  adjudged  case,  are  explained  by  the  fall  of 
Adam  and,  we  must  add,  by  the  fall  of  the  devil,  for  the 
devil  was  the  inciter  of  the  crime  and,  having  been  cre- 
ated good,  must  have  fallen  before.  But,  in  order  that 
Adam's  fall  may  explain  our  proclivity  to  do  evil,  it  is 
necessary  to  explain  the  fall  of  Adam  and  of  the  devil 
who  tempted  him.  If  in  the  story  of  the  fall  of  the  devil 
and  of  Adam  there  should  be  any  explanation  of  that 
fundamental  contradiction  between  the  consciousness  of 
good  and  the  propensity  to  do  wrong,  as  the  church  says, 
then  the  recognition  of  the  fact  that  this  contradiction, 
which  I  am  conscious  of,  is  an  inheritance  from  Adam, 
would  be  an  explanation  for  me ;  but  here  I  am  told  that 
Adam  had  just  such  freedom  as  I  feel  in  myself  and 
that,  having  this  freedom,  he  fell,  and  so  I  have  the  same 
freedom.  What,  then,  does  the  story  of  Adam  explain 
to  me  ? 

We  are  all  ourselves  occupied  with  that  struggle, 
and  we  feel  and  know  by  internal  experience  what,  as  we 
are  told,  took  place  with  the  devil  and  later  with  Adam. 
Precisely  the  same  takes  place  in  us  each  day  and  each 
minute  that  must  have  taken  place  in  the  soul  of  the 
devil  and  in  that  of  Adam.  If  in  the  story  of  the  free- 
dom of  the  devil  and  of  Adam,  of  how  they,  the  creatures 


CKITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY         223 

of  the  Good,  created  for  bliss  and  glory,  fell,  there  were 
given  the  slightest  explauation  of  how  they  could  have 
become  evil,  since  they  had  been  created  good,  I  should 
understand  that  my  propensity  to  do  evil  is  the  conse- 
quence of  their  special  relation  to  good  and  evil ;  but  I 
am  told  that  in  them  took  place  precisely  what  is  taking 
place  in  me,  with  the  only  difference  that  in  them  all 
that  happened  with  less  reason  than  in  me:  I  have  a 
mass  of  temptations  which  did  not  exist  for  them,  and 
I  am  deprived  of  those  special  cooperations  of  God  which 
they  enjoyed.  Thus  the  story  about  them  not  only  ex- 
plains nothing,  but  even  obscures  the  whole  matter;  if 
it  comes  to  analyzing  this  question  of  freedom  and  to 
explaining  it,  would  it  not  have  been  better  to  analyze 
it  and  explain  it  in  myself,  rather  than  in  some  fantastic 
beings,  like  the  devil  and  Adam,  whom  I  am  not  even 
able  to  imagine  ?  After  some  quasi-refutals  of  those  who 
are  supposed  to  say  that  evil  is  due  to  the  limitation 
of  Nature,  to  the  flesh,  to  bad  education,  the  author 
says: 

"  The  most  satisfactory  solution  of  all  these  questions, 
as  far  as  reason  is  concerned,  the  correctest  explanation 
of  the  evil  which  exists  in  the  human  race,  is  offered  by 
the  divine  revelation,  when  it  says  that  the  first  man  was 
actually  created  good  and  innocent,  but  that  he  sinned 
before  God  and  thus  injured  his  whole  nature,  and  that 
thereupon  all  men,  who  come  from  him,  are  naturally 
born  with  the  original  sin,  with  an  impaired  nature,  and 
with  a  propensity  to  do  evil." 

There  are  many  errors  and  many  consequences  of  these 
errors  in  this  reflection.  The  first  error  is  this,  that  if  the 
first  man,  who  was  in  such  unusually  favou-rable  condi- 
tions for  innocence,  impaired  his  nature  and  did  so  only 
because  he  was  free,  there  is  no  need  for  explaining  why 
I  impair  my  own  nature.  There  cannot  even  be  such  a 
question.     Whether  I  am   liis  descendant  or  not,  I  am 


224  CKITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

just  such  a  man  and  have  just  such  freedom,  and  just 
such,  or  even  greater,  temptations.     What  is  there  here 
to  explain  ?     To  say  that  my  proclivity  to  do  evil  is  due 
to  the  inheritance  from  Adam,  means  only  to  roll  the 
guilt  from  an  ailing  head  on  one  that  is  sound,  and  to 
judge  by  traditions,  which,  to  say  the  least,  are  queer,  about 
what  I  already  know  through  inward  experience.     An- 
other error  it  is  to  assert  that  the  propensity  to  sin  is  due 
to  Adam,  for  that  means  to  transfer  the  question  from 
the  sphere  of  faith  to  that  of  reasoning.     A  strange  qiiid 
pro  quo  takes  place  here.     The  church,  which  reveals  to 
us  the  truths  of  religion,  recedes  from  the  foundation  of 
faith,  that  recognition  of  a  mysterious,  incomprehensible 
struggle  which  takes  place  in  the  soul  of  each  man,  and, 
instead  of  giving  by  the  revelation  of  the  divine  truths 
the  means  for  the  successful  struggle  of  the  good  against 
the  evil  in  the  soul  of  each  man,  the  church  takes  up  a 
stand  on  the  field  of  reasoning  and  of  history.     It  aban- 
dons the  sphere  of    religion   and   tells   the   story  about 
Paradise,  Adam,  and  the  apple,  and  firmly  and  stubbornly 
sticks  to  the  barren  Tradition,  which  does  not  even  ex- 
plain anything  or  give  anything  to  those  who  seek  the 
knowledge  of  faith.     The  only  result  of  this  transference 
of  the  question  from  the  chief  foundation  of  any  religion, 
—  from  the  tendency  to  know  good  and  evil,  which  lies 
in  the  soul  of  each   man,  —  to   the   fantastic  sphere  of 
history  is  above  all  to  deprive  the  whole  rehgion  of  that 
only  foundation  on  which  it  can  stand  firmly.     The  ques- 
tions of  faith  have  always  been  and  always  will  be  as  to 
what  my  life  is  with  that  eternal  struggle  between  good 
and  evil,  which  each  man  experiences.     How  am   I   to 
wage  that  war  ?     How  shall  I  hve  ?     But  the  teaching  of 
the  church,  in  place  of  the  question  as  to  how  I  should 
live,  presents  the  question  as  to  why  I  am  bad,  and  replies 
to  tliis  question  by  saying  that  I  am  bad  because  I  became 
so  through  Adam's  sin,  that  I  am  all  in  sin,  that  I  am 


CRITIQUE   OF   DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY  225 

born  in  sin,  that  I  always  live  in  sin,  and  that  I  cannot 
hve  otlierwise  than  in  sin. 

93.  The  consequences  of  the  original  sin.  This  article 
expounds,  with  proofs  from  Holy  Scripture,  that  the 
original  sin  is  in  all  men,  that  all  are  filled  with  unclean- 
ness,  that  the  reason  of  all  men  is  dimmed,  and  that  the 
will  of  all  men  is  more  prone  to  do  evil,  and  that  the  image 
of  God  is  blurred. 

How  would  workmen  work  if  it  were  known  to  them 
that  they  are  all  bad  workmen,  if  they  were  impressed 
with  the  thought  that  they  cannot  work  well,  that  such 
is  their  nature,  and  that,  to  accomplish  their  work,  there 
are  other  means  than  their  labour?  It  is  precisely  this 
that  the  church  does.  You  are  all  filled  with  sin  and 
your  bent  to  do  evil  is  not  due  to  your  will,  but  to  your 
inheritance.  Man  cannot  save  himself  by  his  own  strength. 
There  is  one  means :  prayer,  sacraments,  and  grace.  Can 
a  more  immoral  doctrine  be  invented  ? 

Then  follows  the  moral  application  of  the  dogma. 

Only  one  moral  application  of  this  dogma  is  possible, 
and  that  is,  to  look  for  salvation  outside  the  striving  after 
what  is  good.  But  the  author,  as  always,  not  feeling 
himself  bound  by  any  logical  train  of  thoughts,  throws 
into  the  article  of  the  moral  application  everything  which 
happens  to  occur  to  him  and  which  has  some  verbal,  ex- 
ternal connection  with  what  precedes. 

94.  The  moral  application  of  the  dogma.  There  are 
ten  such  applications :  (1)  to  thank  God  for  having  made 
us  to  perish ;  (2)  the  wife  should  submit  to  her  husband  ; 
(3)  to  love  our  neighbour  since  we  are  all  related  through 
Adam ;  (4)  to  thank  God  for  creating  us  in  the  womb  of 
our  mothers;  (5)  to  praise  God  because  we  have  a  soul 
and  a  body  ;  (6)  to  care  more  for  our  soul ;  (7)  to  preserve 
in  us  the  image  of  God ;  (8)  to  please  God  — 

"  May  the  high  purpose  toward  which  we  are  obliged 
to  strive  always  be  before  our  eyes,  and  may  it,  like  a 


226  CEITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

guiding  star,  illuminate  our  whole  murky  path  of  life ! " 
(p.  514.) 

(9)  Not  to  violate  the  will  of  God,  because  "  it  is  terri- 
ble to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  living,  just  God."  (p, 
514.)  "(10)  The  original  sin,  with  all  its  consequences, 
has  passed  over  to  the  whole  human  race,  so  that  we  are 
all  begotten  and  born  in  iniquity,  impotent  in  soul  and 
body,  and  guilty  toward  God.  May  that  serve  us  as  a 
living,  uninterrupted  lesson  of  humility  and  in  the  recog- 
nition of  our  own  weaknesses  and  defects,  and  may  it 
teach  us  —  "  you  expect  to  hear  "  to  be  better,"  but  no : 
"  may  it  teach  us  to  ask  the  Lord  God  for  his  succour  of 
grace,  and  thankfully  to  make  use  of  the  means  for  salva- 
tion which  Christianity  offers  to  us  !"     (p.  514.) 

With  the  moral  application  of  the  dogma  of  the  volun- 
tary fall  ends  the  chapter  about  God  in  himself,  and  the 
following  chapter  of  the  Theology  speaks  of  God  in  his 
general  relation  to  man  and  to  the  world.  It  is  impossi- 
ble to  understand  the  meaning  of  this  whole  chapter,  if 
we  do  not  keep  in  mind  those  controversies  which  must 
have  been  evoked  by  the  strange  doctrine  about  the  fall 
of  man  and  the  consequent  doctrine  about  grace  and  the 
sacraments.  In  this  chapter  the  Theology  tries  to  remove 
the  contradiction  in  which  it  has  placed  itself  by  the  his- 
tory of  Adam  and  of  redemption:  a  good  God  created 
men  for  their  good,  but  men  are  evil  and  unhappy. 


IX. 

Chapter  II.     Of  God  as  the  Provider. 

The  Theology  says  of  Adam  that  God  aided  him,  lead- 
ing him  toward  the  good,  but  Adam,  endowed  w^ith  free- 
dom, did  not  wish  that  good  and  so  became  unhappy. 
After  the  fall  and  after  the  redemption,  God  has  not 
ceased  cooperating  with  the  good  in  all  creatures  ;  but  the 
creatures,  through  the  freedom  which  has  been  given  to 
them,  do  not  want  that  good,  and  commit  evil. 

Why  has  God  created  men  who  commit  evil  and  so  are 
unhappy  ?  Why,  if  God  cooperates  with  the  good  in  the 
creatures,  does  he  cooperate  so  feebly  that  men,  in  spite  of 
this  cooperation,  become  unhappy  ?  Why  does  this  con- 
dition, which  leads  man  to  misfortune,  persist  after  the 
redemption,  which  was  to  free  him  from  it,  and  why  do 
men,  in  spite  of  the  cooperation  of  God  the  Provider,  again 
do  evil  and  perish  ?  To  all  these  simple  questions  there 
is  no  answer.  The  only  answer  is  the  word  "  allow." 
God  allows  the  evil.  But  why  does  he  allow  the  evil, 
since  he  is  good  and  almighty  ?  To  this  the  Theology 
does  not  reply,  but  carefully  prepares  in  this  chapter  the 
way  for  the  teaching  about  grace,  about  prayer,  and, 
strange  to  say,  about  submission  to  the  worldly  powers. 

Here  is  the  exposition  of  the  dogma  : 

"  Section  I.     Of  divine  providence  in  general. 

"96.  Under  the  name  of  divine  providence  has  since 
antiquity  been  understood  that  care  which  God  has  for  all 
the  beings  of  the  world,  or,  as  this  idea  is  more  circum- 
stantially expressed  in  the  Larger  Christian  Catechism : 

227 


228  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

'  Divine  providence  is  the  constant  action  of  the  ahnighti- 
ness,  wisdom,  and  goodness  of  God,  by  which  he  preserves 
the  being  and  powers  of  the  creatures,  directs  them  to 
good  ends,  assists  all  that  is  good ;  but  the  evil  that 
springs  up  by  departure  from  good  he  cuts  off,  or  corrects 
and  turns  to  good  consequences.'  In  this  way  three  par- 
ticular actions  are  distinguished  in  the  general  concept 
of  the  divine  providence :  the  preservation  of  the  crea- 
tures, the  cooperation,  or  assistance,  given  to  them,  and 
the  direction  of  them. 

"  The  preservation  of  the  creatures  is  a  divine  action  by 
which  the  Almighty  preserves  the  being  of  both  the  whole 
world,  and  also  the  separate  creatures  who  are  contained 
in  it,  with  their  powers,  laws,  and  activities.  The  cooper- 
ation, or  assistance,  given  to  the  creatures  is  a  divine 
action  by  which  the  All-good,  permitting  them  to  make 
use  of  their  own  powers  and  laws,  at  the  same  time  offers 
them  his  aid  and  succour  during  their  activities.  This  is 
especially  palpable  in  relation  to  the  rational  and  free 
creatures,  who  are  all  the  time  in  need  of  the  grace  of 
God  in  order  to  progress  in  the  spiritual  life.  However, 
in  relation  to  the  moral  beings  the  actual  cooperation  of 
God  takes  place  only  when  they  freely  choose  and  do  the 
good ;  but  in  all  those  cases  when  they  according  to  their 
own  will  choose  and  do  the  evil,  there  takes  place  only 
the  permission,  but  not  the  cooperation,  of  God,  for  God 
cannot  do  evil,  and  does  not  wish  to  deprive  the  moral 
beings  of  the  freedom  wliich  he  has  granted  to  them. 

"  Finally,  the  direction  of  the  creatures  is  a  divine 
action,  by  which  the  infinitely  All-wise  directs  them  with 
all  their  lives  and  activities  toward  their  predestined  ends, 
correcting  and  turning,  as  far  as  possible,  their  very  worst 
deeds  toward  good  results.  From  this  it  can  be  seen  that 
all  the  above  mentioned  actions  of  the  divine  providence 
differ  among  themselves.  The  preservation  embraces  also 
the  existence  of  the  creatures,  and  their  powers  and  activi- 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC  •  THEOLOGY  229 

ties ;  the  cooperation  refers  maiuly  to  the  powers ;  the 
direction,  to  the  powers  and  actions  of  the  creatures.  God 
preserves  all  the  creatures  of  the  world ;  he  cooperates 
with  the  good  only,  and  allows  the  evil  ones  to  perform 
their  evil  activities  ;  he  also  directs  all.  Not  one  of  these 
actions  is  contained  in  the  other :  it  is  possible  to  preserve 
a  being,  without  assisting  and  without  directing  it ;  it  is 
possible  to  assist  a  being,  without  preserving  and  without 
directing  it ;  it  is  possible  to  direct  a  being  without  pre- 
serving and  without  assisting  it.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
it  must  be  remarked  that  all  three  actions  of  the  divine 
providence  are  distinguished  and  divided  only  by  us, 
according  to  their  different  manifestations  in  the  limited 
and  diversified  beings  of  the  world  and  in  consequence  of 
the  limitation  of  our  mind,  but  in  themselves  they  are  not 
separable  and  form  one  unlimited  action  of  God,  because 
God,  who  '  at  the  same  time  sees  everything  together  and 
each  in  particular,'  performs  everything  by  one  simple, 
uncomplicated  action.  He  inseparably  preserves  all  his 
creations,  and  assists  and  directs  them. 

"  Divine  providence  is  generally  divided  into  two  kinds  : 
into  general  providence  and  into  particular  providence. 
General  providence  is  the  one  which  embraces  the  whole 
world  in  general,  and  also  the  species  and  genera  of 
beings ;  particular  providence  is  the  one  which  is  ex- 
tended over  the  particular  beings  of  the  world  and  over 
each  of  the  entities,  no  matter  how  small  they  may  appear. 
The  Orthodox  Church,  believing  that  God  '  from  the  small- 
est to  the  largest  knows  everytliiug  precisely,  and  in 
particular  provides  for  each  creation,'  apparently  admits 
both  these  kinds  of  providence. 

"  The  ideas  of  divine  providence,  as  expounded  above, 
exclude :  (a)  the  false  doctrine  of  the  Gnostics,  Mani- 
cheans,  and  other  heretics,  who,  submitting  everything  to 
fate,  or  recognizing  the  world  as  a  product  of  an  evil  prin- 
ciple, or  recognizing  divine  providence  as  superfluous  for 


230  CRITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

the  world,  entirely  rejected  divine  providence  with  all  its 
actions;  (b)  the  false  teaching  of  the  Pelagians,  who  re- 
jected in  particular  the  cooperation  with  rational  and  irra- 
tional beings,  regarding  this  as  incongruous  with  their 
perfection  and  freedom,  and  also  (c)  the  contrary  teachiiig 
of  various  sectarians,  who,  believing  in  unconditional 
divine  predestination,  to  such  an  extent  exaggerate  the 
divine  cooperation  with  the  rational  creatures  that  they 
almost  destroy  their  freedom,  and  regard  God  as  the  true 
cause  of  all  their  good  and  bad  actions ;  finally  (d)  the 
false  teaching  of  certain  sophists,  both  ancient  and  mod- 
ern, who  admit  only  the  general  providence  and  reject  the 
particular,  considering  it  unworthy  of  God."  (pp.  515- 
517.) 

97.  The  actuality  of  divine  providence. 

98.  The  actuality  of  each  of  the  actions  of  the  divine 
providence.  This  actuality  is  proved  by  texts  from  the 
Book  of  Job,  from  the  Book  of  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon, 
from  the  Psalms,  and  from  elsewhere.  These  texts  prove 
nothing  except  that  all  men  who  recognized  God  recognized 
his  almightiness. 

99.  The  actuality  of  the  two  kinds  of  divine  providence. 
Besides  the  general  providence  there  is  described  the 
particular  providence  about  each  being  taken  separately. 

100.  The  participation  of  all  the  persons  of  the  Holy 
Trinity  in  the  act  of  providence.  All  the  persons  take 
part  in  providence.  This  is  proved  from  Holy  Scripture ; 
then,  in  conclusion,  the  explanation : 

"  It  is  not  difficult  for  a  believer  to  explain  why  all 
three  persons  of  the  Deity  take  part  in  the  act  of  provi- 
dence. That  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  providence  of  the 
world  is  an  action  of  divine  omniscience,  omnipresence, 
all- wisdom,  almightiness,  and  goodness,  —  of  such  attri- 
butes as  belong  equally  to  all  three  persons  of  the  Holy 
Trinity."     (p.  532.) 

Then  follows  what  pretends  to  be  a  solution  of  the 


CKITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  231 

question  which  naturally  arises  with  the  assertion  of 
the  existence  of  the  providence  of  a  good  God :  whence 
comes  the  moral  and  physical  evil  ? 

101.  The  relation  of  divine  providence  to  the  freedom 
of  the  moral  beings  and  to  the  evil  which-  exists  in  the 
world. 

"(1)  Divine  providence  does  not  impair  the  freedom  of 
the  moral  beings.  Of  this  we  are  assured  both  by  the 
Word  of  God  and  by  our  own  conscience  and  reason, 
which  also  assert  that  we  are  all  the  time  under  the  influ- 
ence of  divine  providence  (cf.  Arts.  81,  93),  and  that  we 
are  all  free  in  our  moral  actions  (Arts.  97,  99).  In  what 
manner  divine  providence,  with  all  its  effects  in  the  moral 
world,  does  not  violate  the  freedom  of  the  spiritual  beings, 
we  ate  not  able  fully  to  explain,  but  we  can  to  a  certain 
extent  approach  its  comprehension." 

Tliis  is  the  way  God  with  all  his  effects  does  not 
violate  the  freedom  : 

"  (a)  God  is  an  unchangeable,  omniscient,  all-wise  being. 
Being  unchangeable,  he,  having  deigned  to  endow  the 
rational  creatures  with  freedom,  cannot  change  his  deter- 
mination so  as  to  oppress  or  entirely  abolish  it.  Being 
omniscient,  he  knows  in  advance  all  the  desires,  intentions, 
and  actions  of  the  free  beings.  And  being  infinitely  all- 
wisCj  he  will  always  find  means  to  arrange  his  actions  in 
such  a  way  as  —  " 

What  you  expect  is :  "  not  to  impair  the  action  of  his 
providence,"  but  that  is  far  from  the  mark  : 

"  As  to  leave  inviolable  the  freedom  of  the  actors."  (p. 
532.) 

In  a  book  which  treats  of  God  and  of  faith  in  him, 
suddenly  enter  the  basest  tricks  ! 

God  is  unchangeable,  and  so  he  cannot  change  liis 
determination  about  the  freedom  of  man.  But,  in  the 
first  place,  unchangeableness  means  something  quite  dif- 
ferent.    Uuchangeableness  means  that  he  remains  always 


232  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

one  and  the  same.  If  in  the  determination  of  the  attri- 
butes of  God  it  is  added  that  he  does  not  change  his 
determinations,  this  false  definition  is  evidently  giveu  in 
order  later  to  fall  back  on  it.  But  let  us  admit  the  im- 
possible, for  we  know  from  the  Theology  about  the  chang- 
ing of  his  own  determinations,  that  the  unchangeableness 
of  God  means  the  unchangeableness  of  his  determinations  ; 
still,  we  have  no  proof  of  it,  and  all  that  is  left  is  a  mis- 
erable rascally  deal. 

Among  the  number  of  God's  attributes,  according  to 
the  Theology,  there  are  almightiness,  completest  freedom, 
endless  goodness.  The  admission  by  God  of  moral  evil  and 
the  punishment  for  it,  due  to  the  freedom  of  man,  contra- 
dicts his  goodness  ;  and  the  necessity  in  which  God  is 
placed  to  arrange  things  in  such  a  way  as  to  leave  the 
freedom  of  the  actors  inviolable  contradicts  his  freedom 
and  almightiness. 

The  theologians  have  themselves  tied  the  knot  which  it 
is  impossible  to  untie.  An  almighty,  good  God,  a  Creator 
and  Provider  of  man,  and  an  unfortunate,  evil,  and  free 
man,  such  as  the  theologians  acknowledge  him  to  be,  are 
two  concepts  which  exclude  each  other. 

"  (b)  Divine  providence  in  respect  to  the  creatures  is 
expressed  in  this,  that  God  preserves  them,  cooperates 
with  them  or  allows  them  to  do  as  they  please,  and  directs 
them.  When  God  preserves  the  moral  beings,  he  pre- 
serves their  existence  and  their  powers  ;  then  he,  no  doubt, 
does  not  embarrass  their  freedom :  that  is  self-evident. 
When  he  cooperates  with  them  in  the  good,  he  also  does 
not  embarrass  them  in  their  freedom,  because  they  are 
still  left  as  the  actors,  that  is,  to  choose  and  perform  a 
certain  action,  and  God  only  cooperates  with  them,  or 
assists  them.  Wlien  he  allows  them  to  commit  an  evil 
act,  he  still  less  embarrasses  their  freedom,  and  permits 
this  freedom  to  act  without  his  aid,  according  to  its  will. 
Finally,  in  directing  moral  beings,  divine  providence  prop- 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    TUEOLOGY  233 

erly  directs  them  toward  the  aim  for  which  they  are 
created  ;  and  the  regular  use  of  their  freedom  consists  in 
striving  for  the  last  aim  of  their  being."     (p.  533.) 

What  ?  Was  it  not  said  that  he  allows  them  to  com- 
mit evil  acts  ?  How,  then,  does  he  direct  them  toward 
their  aim  for  which  they  are  created,  when  their  aim,  as 
was  said  before,  was  their  good  ? 

"  Consequently  the  divine  direction  does  not  in  the 
least  embarrass  the  moral  freedom  and  only  assists  it  in 
its  striving  toward  its  aim. 

"  (c)  We  know  from  experience  that  quite  frequently 
we  are  able  with  our  words  and  motions,  and  in  various 
other  ways,  to  turn  our  neighbours  to  this  or  that  act  and 
to  direct  them  without  embarrassing  their  freedom  ;  how 
much  more  easily  the  infinitely  All-wise  and  Almiglaty  is 
able  to  find  means  for  directing  the  moral  beings  in  such 
a  way  that  their  freedom  shall  not  suffer  by  it  ? . . .  " 

The  periods  are  in  the  book.  This  whole  chapter  is 
striking  in  that,  apparently  without  any  visible  necessity, 
it  raises  again  the  question  of  Adam's  fall,  transferring  it 
now  from  the  sphere  of  history  to  that  of  actuality.  One 
would  think  that  the  question  as  to  whence  the  evil,  both 
the  moral  and  the  physical,  came,  was  decided  in  the 
Theology  by  the  dogma  of  the  fall  of  man.  Adam  was 
given  freedom,  and  he  fell  into  sin,  and  so  all  his  pos- 
terity fell  into  sin.  One  would  think  that  all  was  ended, 
and  that  there  could  be  no  place  left  for  the  question  of 
freedom.  But  suddenly  it  turns  out  that  after  the  fall 
man  remains  in  the  same  condition  that  Adam  was  in, 
that  is,  capable  of  doing  either  good  or  evil,  even  after  the 
redemption,  so  that  again  man,  the  creation  of  the  good 
God,  who  is  eternally  providing  for  him,  may  be  bad  and 
unhappy  ;  as  it  was  with  Adam,  just  so  it  remains  in 
relation  to  men  after  the  fall  and  after  their  redemption. 
Apparently  the  Theology  needs  this  contradiction  of  the 
good  God  and  the  bad,  unhappy  and  free  Adam  and  man. 


234  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEQLOaY 

Indeed  it  needs  it.  The  necessity  of  this  contradiction 
will  be  made  clear  in  the  teaching  about  grace.  After 
this  follows  : 

102.  The  moral  application  of  the  dogma.  It  consists 
in  (1)  singing  praises  to  God,  (2)  hoping  in  him,  (3)  pray- 
ing, (4)  complying  with  God's  providence,  and  (5)  doing 
good  to  others,  even  as  God  does  it.  With  this  properly 
ends  the  teaching  about  divine  providence.  The  next 
section  is  only  a  justificatiou  of  the  coarsest  superstitions 
which  are  connected  with  this  teaching. 

Here  is  what  the  Theology  deduces  from  divine  prov- 
idence. About  divine  providence  in  relation  to  the  spir- 
itual world. 

103.  The  connection  with  what  precedes. 

104.  God  cooperates  with  the  good  angels.  Proved  by 
Holy  Scripture.  The  angels  serve  the  all-satisfied,  all- 
perfect  God. 

105.  God  directs  the  good  angels  :  (a)  their  serving  God. 

106.  (b)  Angels  in  the  service  of  men  :  (aa)  in  general 
"  they  are  given  for  the  preservation  of  cities,  kingdoms, 
districts,  monasteries,  churches,  and  men,  both  clerical 
and  lay  —  " 

107.  (bb)  Angels  as  guardians  of  human  societies. 
There  are  angels  of  kingdoms,  nations,  and  churches. 

108.  (cc)  Angels  as  guardians  of  private  individuals. 

109.  God  merely  allows  the  activity  of  evil  angels. 
God  only  permits  the  devils  to  act. 

110.  God  has  limited  and  still  limits  the  activity  of  the 
evil  spirits,  directing  it,  withal,  toward  good  results.  In 
this  chapter  there  is  an  account,  confirmed  by  Scripture, 
of  all  kinds  of  devils,  of  how  to  protect  oneself  against 
them  with  the  cross  and  with  praye]:s,  and  what  the  devils 
are  good  for  :  they  humble  us,  and  so  forth. 

111.  The  moral  application  of  the  dogma  about  the 
angels  and  devils  is  tliis,  that  it  is  necessary  to  worship 
the  angels  and  fear  the  devil : 


CRITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC   TUEOLOGY  235 

"  And  if  we  fall  in  the  struggle,  if  we  sin,  let  us  not  be 
frightened  before  the  evil,  let  us  not  give  ourselves  over 
to  despair :  we  have  an  advocate  with  the  i'ather,  Jesus 
Christ  the  righteous  (1  John  ii,  1).  Let  us  call  him,  with 
sincere  repentance  for  our  fall  and  with  sincere  faith,  and 
he  will  raise  us  up,  and  will  again  clothe  us  with  all  the 
weapons,  that  we  may  be  able  to  oppose  our  eternal  foe." 
(p.  575.) 

112,  113,  114  impress  upon  us,  with  confirmations  from 
Holy  Scripture,  the  idea  that  God  rules  the  material 
world,  and  that  therefore  the  moral  application  of  the 
dogma  is,  to  pray  God  for  raiu,  good  weather,  and  healing, 
and  not  to  risk  our  healths  too  much. 

116.  God's  especial  care  of  men. 

117.  God  provides  for  kingdoms  and  nations.  The 
essence  of  this  article,  confirmed  by  Holy  Scripture,  is  as 
follows : 

"  The  health  of  kings  causes  our  peace  —  For  God 
has  established  the  powers  for  the  common  good.  And 
would  it  not  be  unjust,  if  they  bore  arms  and  waged  war 
that  we  might  live  in  peace,  while  we  did  not  send  up 
prayers  for  those  who  were  subjecting  themselves  to  dan- 
gers and  waging  war  ?  Thus  this  matter  (the  prayer  for 
the  kings)  is  not  merely  a  graceful  act,  but  is  performed 
by  the  law  of  justice."     (p.  585.) 

And  in  another  place :  "  Destroy  the  places  of  justice, 
and  you  will  destroy  all  order  in  our  life ;  remove  the 
helmsman  from  the  ship,  and  you  will  send  it  to  the  bot- 
tom ;  take  the  leader  away  from  the  army,  and  you  will 
give  the  soldiers  into  captivity  to  the  enemy.  Thus,  if 
you  deprive  the  cities  of  their  chiefs,  we  shall  act  more 
senselessly  than  the  animals  which  cannot  speak,  —  we 
shall  bite  and  devour  one  another  (Gal.  v.  15),  the  rich 
will  devour  the  poor,  the  strong  the  weak,  the  bold  the 
meek.  But  now,  by  the  grace  of  God,  nothing  of  the  kind 
happens.     Those  who    live    honestly,  naturally  have  no 


236  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

need  of  the  correctionary  measures  by  the  chiefs :  law  is 
not  made  for  the  righteous  man  (1  Tim.  i.  9).  But  if 
vicious  people  were  uot  restrained  by  fear  of  the  chiefs, 
they  would  fill  the  cities  with  endless  calamities.  Know- 
ing this,  Paul  said :  There  is  no  power  but  of  God :  the 
powers  that  be  are  ordained  by  God  (Eom.  xiii.  1).  What 
the  crossbeams  are  in  the  houses,  the  chiefs  are  in  the 
cities.  Destroy  them,  the  walls  will  fall  to  pieces  and 
crumble :  thus,  if  the  chiefs  and  the  fear  which  they 
cause  were  to  be  taken  away  from  the  world,  the  houses, 
and  cities,  and  nations  would  with  great  boldness  fall 
upon  each  other,  for  there  would  not  be  any  one  to  restrain 
and  stop  them  and  by  the  threat  of  punishment  to  compel 
them  to  keep  the  peace."     (pp.  585  and  586.) 

118.  God  provides  for  individuals.  Proved  by  Holy 
Scripture. 

119.  God  provides  mainly  for  the  righteous:  solution 
of  a  perplexity.  The  perplexity  is,  why  are  the  righteous 
unhappy  ?  The  answer  is,  that  they  receive  their  rewards 
beyond  the  grave. 

120.  Manner  in  which  God  provides  for  man,  and  con- 
nection with  the  next  part.  There  are  two  methods  of 
divine  providence  :  natural  and  supernatural. 

121.  The  moral  application  of  the  dogma: 

"  Himself  ruhng  the  kingdoms  of  earth,  the  Highest 
himself  puts  kings  over  them,  by  means  of  a  mysterious 
anointment  imparts  power  and  dominion  to  his  chosen 
ones,  and  crowns  them  in  honour  and  glory  for  the  good 
of  the  nations.  Hence  it  is  the  duty  of  each  son  of  his 
country  :  (a)  to  stand  in  awe  before  his  monarch,  as  before 
the  anointed  one  of  God ;  (&)  to  love  him  as  the  common 
father,  given  by  the  Highest  for  the  great  family  of  the 
nation,  and  weighted  down  with  cares  about  the  happiness 
of  one  and  all ;  (c)  to  obey  him  as  one  who  is  clothed  in 
power  from  above,  and  ruling  and  guided  by  God  in  his 
affairs  of  state;  (d)  to  pray  for  the  king  that  the  Lord 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  237 

may  grant  him,  for  the  happiness  of  Ms  subjects,  health 
and  salvation,  success  in  everything,  victory  over  his 
enemies,  and  many  years  of  life  (1  Tim.  ii.  1).  Through 
their  kings,  as  their  anointed  ones,  God  sends  to  the 
nations  all  their  inferior  povv^ers.  Consequently  it  is 
the  duty  of  every  citizen :  (a)  to  submit  to  all  authority 
for  the  Lord's  sake  (3  Peter  ii.  13),  for  whosoever  resisteth 
the  pov^er,  resisteth  the  ordinance  of  God ;  (h)  to  render 
to  all  their  dues  :  tribute  to  whom  tribute  is  due ;  custom 
to  whom  custom  ;  fear  to  whom  fear ;  honour  to  whom 
honour  (Rom.  xiii.  7)."     (pp.  597  and  598.) 

Thus  ends  the  First  Part  of  the  Theology.     With  this 
moral  application  of  the  dogma  ends  the  Simple  Theology. 


SECOND  PART  OF  THE  DOGMATIC 

THEOLOGY 

X. 

Of  God  the  Saviour  aud  his  special  relation  to  the 
human  race  (©eoAoyta  oIkovoimktj). 

Thus  begins  the  Second  Part. 

122.  Connection  with  the  preceding,  importance  of  the 
subject,  doctrine  of  the  church  about  it,  and  the  division 
of  the  doctrine.  "  Heretofore  we  were,  so  to  speak,  in 
the  sanctuary  of  the  Orthodox  dogmatic  theology  ;  now 
we  enter  the  sanctum  sanctorum,"     (p.  7.) 

This  Second  Part,  w^hich  enters  the  sanctum  sanctorum, 
indeed,  sharply  contrasts  with  the  First. 

In  the  First  are  shown  the  propositions  and  questions 
which  have  always  lain  in  the  soul  of  each  man :  about 
the  beginning  of  everything  —  God,  about  the  beginning 
of  the  material  and  of  the  spiritual  world,  about  man, 
about  the  soul,  and  about  man's  struggle  between  the 
good  and  the  evil. 

In  this  Second  Part  there  is  no  longer  anything  of  the 
kind.  None  of  the  dogmas  which  are  disclosed  here  an- 
swer any  question  of  faith,  but  they  are  arbitrary  proposi- 
tions, which  are  not  connected  with  anything  human,  and 
which  are  based  only  on  a  certain  very  coarse  inter- 
pretation of  all  kinds  of  words  of  Holy  Scripture,  and  so 
cannot  be  analyzed  or  judged  on  the  basis  of  their  relation 
to  reason.     There  is  no  connection  whatsoever.     These 

dogmas  may  be  viewed  only  in  relation  to  their  correct- 

239 


240  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

ness  and  their  interpretation  of  the  words  of  Scripture. 
The  dogmas  which  are  expounded  here  are  :  (1)  the  dogma 
of  the  redemption,  (2)  the  dogma  of  the  incarnation,  (3) 
the  dogma  of  the  manner  of  redemption,  (4)  the  dogma  of 
the  church,  (5)  the  dogma  of  grace,  (6)  the  dogma  of  the 
mysteries,  (7)  the  dogma  of  the  particular  retribution,  (8) 
the  dogma  of  the  general  judgment  and  of  the  end  of  the 
world.  All  these  dogmas  are  answers  to  questions  which 
a  man  seeking  the  path  of  life  has  not  put  and  cannot 
put.  These  dogmas  receive  an  importance  only  from  the 
fact  that  the  church  asserts  that  it  is  necessary  to  believe 
in  them,  and  that  he  who  does  not  believe  in  them  will 
perish.  All  these  are  propositions  which  are  in  no  way 
connected  with  questions  of  faith,  and  are  independent 
of  them.  All  of  them  are  based  only  on  the  demand  of 
obedience  to  the  church. 

Composition  of  division  I.  Of  God  the  Saviour. 
The  central  dogma  of  this  part  is  the  dogma  of  the 
redemption.  On  this  dogma  is  based  the  whole  doctrine 
of  this  part.  It  consists  in  this,  that  in  consequence  of 
the  supposed  fall  of  Adam  his  descendants  fell  into  actual 
and  spiritual  death,  their  reason  was  dimmed,  and  they 
lost  the  image  of  God.  For  the  salvation  of  men  from 
this  supposed  fall  the  necessity  of  redemption  is  proposed, 
—  paying  God  for  Adam's  sin.  This  pay,  according  to 
the  teaching  of  the  church,  takes  place  by  means  of  the 
mcamation  of  Christ,  his  descent  upon  earth,  his  suffering 
and  death.  Christ  the  God  descends  on  earth  and  by  his 
death  saves  men  from  sin  and  death.  But  since  this  death 
is  only  imaginary  ;  since  after  the  redemption  men  remain 
actually  the  same  as  was  Adam,  as  they  were  after  Adam, 
as  they  were  in  the  time  of  Christ  and  after  Christ,  and 
as  men  have  always  been ;  since  in  reality  there  remain 
the  same  sin,  the  same  propensity  to  do  evil,  the  same 
death,  the  same  labour  pain,  the  same  necessity  of  work- 
ing in  order  to  support  oneself,  which  are  all  pecuhar  to 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  241 

man,  —  the  whole  teaching  of  the  Second  Part  is  no  longer 
a  teaching  about  faith,  Ixit  pure  myth.  For  this  reason 
the  teaching  of  this  Second  Part  has  a  special  character. 
In  this  Second  Part  stand  out  sharply  those  incipient 
departures  from  common  sense  which  were  made  in  the 
exposition  of  the  dogmas  of  the  First  Part,  about  God, 
about  man,  about  evil.  Apparently  the  teaching  of  the 
First  Part  is  based  on  the  faith  in  the  Second  Part,  and 
the  second  does  not  result  from  the  first,  as  the  Theology 
is  trying  to  make  out ;  on  the  contrary,  the  faith  in  the 
mythology  of  the  Second  Part  serves  as  the  basis  of  all 
the  departures  from  common  sense,  which  we  find  in  the 
First  Part.     Here  is  that  teachin"  : 

"  124.  The  necessity  of  divine  assistance  for  the  rehabil- 
itation of  man  with  the  possibility  for  it  on  the  part  of 
man.  (1)  Man  has  committed  three  great  wrongs,  by  not 
observing  the  original  command  of  God :  (a)  with  his  sin 
he  has  offended  infinitely  his  infinitely  good,  but  also 
infinitely  great,  infinitely  just  Creator,  and  thus  has  been 
subjected  to  an  eternal  curse  (Gen.  iii.  17-19);  (cf.  Gen. 
xxvii.  26)  ;  (h)  he  has  infected  witli  sin  all  his  being, 
which  was  created  good  :  has  dimmed  his  intellect,  has 
perverted  his  will,  has  mutilated  in  himself  the  image  of 
God  ;  (c)  has  by  his  sin  produced  disastrous  results  in  his 
own  nature  and  in  external  Nature.  Consequently,  in 
order  to  save  man  from  all  these  evils,  in  order  to  unite 
him  with  God  and  make  him  once  more  blessed,  it  was 
necessary :  (a)  for  the  sinner  to  satisfy  the  infinite  justice 
of  God,  which  was  offended  by  man's  fall,  —  not  because 
he  wanted  vengeance,  but  because  no  attribute  of  God  can 
be  deprived  of  its  proper  action :  without  the  execution  of 
this  condition  man  would  for  ever  remain  before  the  justice 
of  God  as  the  child  of  wrath  (Eph.  ii.  3),  as  the  child  of 
curse  (Gal.  iii.  10),  and  the  reconciliation  and  union  of  God 
with  man  could  not  even  begin ;  (J>)  to  destroy  sin  in  the 
whole  being  of  man,  to  enlighten  his  reason,  correct  his 


242  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

will,  and  reestablish  in  him  the  image  of  God :  because, 
if,  after  the  justice  of  God  were  satisfied,  the  being  of  man 
still  remained  sinful  and  impure,  if  his  reason  remained  in 
darkness,  and  the  image  of  God  were  mutilated,  —  the 
communion  between  God  and  man  could  not  take  place, 
any  more  than  between  light  and  darkness  (2  Cor.  vi.  14); 
(c)  to  destroy  the  disastrous  results  which  man's  sin  has 
produced  in  his  nature  and  in  external  Nature :  because,  if 
even  the  communion  of  God  with  man  should  have  begun 
and  should  exist,  man  could  not  again  become  blessed, 
until  he  should  feel  in  himself  or  should  experience  in 
himself  anew  those  disastrous  consequences.  Who  could 
execute  all  the  above  mentioned  conditions  ?  None  but 
the  one  God."     (pp.  10  and  11.) 

125.  The  means  chosen  by  God  for  the  rehabilitation, 
or  redemption,  of  man,  and  the  significance  of  that  means, 
"  God  found  for  the  rehabilitation  of  man  a  means  in  which 
his  mercy  and  truth  are  met  together,  and  righteousness 
and  peace  have  kissed  each  other"  (Psalm  Ixxxv.  10),  and 
in  which  his  perfections  appeared  in  their  highest  form 
and  in  full  concord.     This  means  consists  in  the  follow- 


ing 


"  The  second  person  of  the  Most  Holy  Trinity,  the 
only-begotten  Son  of  God,  voluntarily  wished  to  become 
man,  to  take  upon  himself  all  the  human  sins,  to  suffer 
for  them  everything  which  the  just  ^vill  of  God  had  deter- 
mined, and  thus  to  satisfy  for  us  the  eternal  justice,  to 
wipe  out  our  sins^  to  destroy  their  very  consequences  in 
us  and  in  external  Nature,  that  is,  to  recreate  the  world." 
(p.  15.) 

There  follow  confirmations  from  Holy  Scripture  and 
from  the  holy  fathers. 

126.  The  participation  of  all  the  persons  of  the  Most 
Holy  Trinity  in  the  work  of  redemption,  and  why  the  Soti 
was  incarnated  for  this  purpose.  "  However,  although  for 
our  redemption  was  chosen,  as  the  best  means,  the  incar- 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  243 

nation  of  the  Son  of  God,  the  Father  and  the  Holy  Ghost 
also  took  part  in  this  gi-eat  work."     (p.  19.) 
Proofs  from  Holy  Scripture. 

127.  The  motive  for  the  ^york  of  redemption,  and  the 
purpose  of  the  descent  upon  earth  of  the  Son  of  God. 
"  I.  Why  did  it  please  the  tri-hypostatic  God  to  redeem 
us  ?  There  is  one  cause  for  it :  his  infinite  love  for  us  sin- 
ners. II.  As  to  the  purpose  of  the  embassy  and  of  the 
descent  into  the  world  of  the  Son  of  God,  that  is  clearly 
indicated  by  the  holy  church  when  it  teaches  us  to  pro- 
fess :  '  Who  has  descended  from  heaven  for  the  sake  of  us 
men,  and  for  the  sake  of  our  salvation.'  "  Proved  by  Holy 
Scripture. 

128.  The  eternal  predetermination  of  the  redemption, 
and  why  the  Picdeemer  did  not  come  earlier  upon 
earth. 

The  redemption  had  been  predetermined  from  eternity. 
God,  in  spite  of  his  goodness,  foresaw  the  fall  of  man  and 
all  his  sutferings.  God  did  not  redeem  us  at  once,  (1)  in 
order  that  men  might  feel  their  fall  and  desire  their 
redemption  ;  "  (2)  it  was  necessary  that  the  infection  of 
the  sin,  which  had  deeply  penetrated  the  nature  of  man, 
should  slowly  come  to  the  surface."     (p.  28.) 

For  tliis  purpose  it  was  necessary  for  billions  of  people 
to  fall  into  sin  and  misfortune. 

"  (3)  It  was  necessary  to  prepare  people  for  the  arrival 
upon  earth  of  such  an  extraordinary  Messenger  of  God  as 
was  the  Redeemer."     (p.  28.) 

It  was  necessary  for  a  period  of  5,500  years  to  prepare 
humanity  for  it  by  signs. 

(4)  It  was  necessary  that  humanity  should  pass  a  long 
series  of  purifications  and  sanctifications  in  the  host  of 
the  holy  men  of  the  Old  Testament,     (p.  29.) 

129.  The  preparation  by  God  of  the  human  race  for  the 
reception  of  the  Redeemer,  and  the  faith  in  him  at  all 
times.     The  preparations  of  the  human  race  were :  (1)  the 


244  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

prophecies,  such  as  that  the  woman  would  bruise  the  ser- 
pent's head,  and  so  forth. 

"  From  the  time  of  this  protoevangely  about  the  Mes- 
siah, which  was  announced  even  in  Paradise,  and  of  the 
establishment  of  sacrifices,  which  pointed  to  his  sufferings 
and  death,  the  saving  faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus  has  existed 
uninterruptedly  with  the  human  race.  In  accordance 
with  this  faith  Adam  called  his  wife  '  life '  (Gen.  iii.  20), 
although  he  had  heard  the  judgment  of  the  Judge :  Dust 
thou  art,  and  unto  dust  shalt  thou  return  (Gen.  iii.  19); 
according  to  this  faith  Eve  called  her  first-born  Cain  :  I 
have  gotten  a  man  from  the  Lord  (Gen.  iv.  1).  Unques- 
tionably in  this  faith  the  hypostatic  all- wisdom  of  God,  as 
the  All-wise  witnesses  and  the  church  professes,  guarded 
the  first  formed  father  of  the  world,  that  was  created 
alone,  and  delivered  him  out  of  his  transgression  (Wis.  of 
Sol.  X.  1),  for  there  is  none  other  name  under  heaven 
given  among  men,  whereby  we  must  be  saved  (Acts. 
iv.  12),  except  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ."  (pp.  30 
and  31.) 

Besides  the  prophecies,  there  were  also  signs,  such  as : 
the  sacrifice  of  Isaac,  Jonas  in  the  belly  of  the  whale,  the 
paschal  lamb,  the  brazen  serpent,  the  whole  ritual  of 
Moses,  and  finally  the  moral  and  civil  laws. 

130.  The  moral  application  of  the  dogma  is  this,  that 
(1)  we  ought  to  learn  humility,  (2)  ought  to  love  God 
and  one  another,  and  (3)  ought  to  stand  in  awe  before 
the  wisdom  of  God. 

The  dogma  of  the  redemption  will  be  expounded 
further  on  in  detail,  and  in  that  place  will  be  analyzed 
those  proofs  on  which  the  church  bases  it ;  now  I  will 
speak  only  of  the  significance  which  the  dogma  may  have 
to  thinking  people.  It  is  useless  to  refute  this  dogma. 
The  dogma  negates  itself,  for  it  does  not  affirm  anything 
about  what  is  mysterious  and  incomprehensible  for  us,  as 
was  affirmed  in  the  case  of  the  attributes  and  persons  of 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  245 

God,  but  asserts  somethiog  about  ourselves,  men,  about 
somethiug  which  is  best  kuown  to  us,  and  asserts  it  obvi- 
ously contrary  to  reality.  It  was  possible  to  refute  with 
proofs  of  common  sense  that  God  the  Spirit  has  fourteen 
attributes,  and  so  forth,  for  the  attributes  of  God  are  not 
known  to  us,  but  there  is  no  need  to  refute  with  proofs 
of  common  sense  the  argument  that  by  the  incarnation 
and  death  of  Jesus  Christ  the  human  race  was  redeemed, 
that  is,  is  freed  from  the  propensity  to  commit  sin,  from 
the  dimming  of  the  intellect,  from  child  labour,  from 
physical  and  spiritual  death,  and  from  the  unfruitfulness 
of  the  earth.  In  this  case  there  is  not  even  any  need  to 
show  that  none  of  the  things  asserted  exist,  for  every- 
body knows  that.  All  of  us  know  full  well  that  they  do 
not  exist,  that  men  are  evil,  die,  and  do  not  know  the 
truth,  that  women  suffer  in  child  labour,  and  that  men 
earn  their  bread  in  the  sweat  of  their  brows.  To  prove 
the  incorrectness  of  this  teaching  would  be  the  same  as 
proving  that  he  is  wrong  who  asserts  that  I  have  four 
legs.  The  assertion  made  by  a  man  that  I  have  four  legs 
can  only  cause  me  to  look  for  the  cause  which  may  have 
led  a  man  to  assert  what  is  palpably  w^rong.  The  same 
is  true  of  the  dogma  of  the  redemption.  It  is  obvious  to 
all  that  after  the  so-called  redemption  by  Jesus  Christ  no 
change  took  place  in  the  condition  of  man  ;  what  cause 
has,  then,  the  church  to  assert  the  opposite  ?  That  is  a 
question  wliich  involuntarily  presents  itself  to  one.  The 
dogma  is  based  on  original  sin.  But  the  dogma  itself 
about  original  sin,  as  we  have  seen,  is  a  transference  of 
the  question  about  good  and  evil  from  a  sphere  which  is 
accessible  to  the  inward  experience  of  each  man  to  the 
sphere  of  mythology. 

The  most  mysterious  foundation  of  human  life,  —  the 
internal  struggle  between  good  and  evil,  the  consciousness 
of  man's  freedom  and  dependence  on  God,  —  is,  by  the 
doctrine  about  the  redemption,  excluded  from  the  con- 


246  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

scioiisness  of  man  and  transferred  to  mythological  history. 
What  is  said  is:  7,200  years  ago  God  created  the  free 
Adam,  that  is,  man,  and  this  man  fell  on  account  of  his 
freedom  and  so  God  punished  him  and  punished  his  pos- 
terity. The  punishment  consisted  in  this,  that  the  men 
so  punished  were  placed  in  the  same  position,  in  regard 
to  the  choice  of  good  and  evil,  in  which  man  had  been 
before  the  punishment.  Thus  this  teaching,  which  ex- 
plains nothing  in  the  essential  question  about  the  free- 
dom of  man,  slanderously  accuses  God  of  injustice,  which 
is  so  out  of  keeping  with  his  goodness  and  justice.  This 
injustice  is,  that  the  descendants  are  punished  for  some- 
body else's  sin.  If  the  teaching  about  the  fall  explained 
anything  to  us,  we  might  be  able  to  understand  the 
rational  cause  which  has  led  to  the  transference  of  the 
question  from  the  inner  consciousness  to  the  sphere  of 
myths ;  but  there  are  no  explanations  for  the  question 
about  the  freedom  of  man,  and  so  there  must  be  some 
other  cause  for  it.  This  cause  we  only  now"  find  in  the 
dogma  of  the  redemption. 

The  church  asserts  that  Christ  has  redeemed  men  from 
evil  and  death.  If  he  has  done  so,  there  arises  the  ques- 
tion :  Whence  comes  evil  and  death  among  men  ?  And 
for  this  the  dogma  of  the  fall  of  man  is  invented.  Christ 
the  God  has  saved  men  from  evil  and  death ;  but  men  are 
creatures  of  the  same  good  God,  so  how  could  evil  and 
death  have  come  to  men  ?  To  tliis  question  the  myth  of 
the  fall  of  man  gives  an  answer.  Adam,  having  misused 
his  freedom,  did  vvroug  and  fell,  and  with  him  his  pos- 
terity fell  and  lost  immortality,  the  knowledge  of  God, 
and  life  without  labour.  Christ  came  and  returned  to 
humanity  all  that  it  had  lost.  Humanity  became  unail- 
ing,  unworking,  doing  no  evil,  and  undying.  In  this 
imaginary  state  humanity  is  already  freed  from  sin,  suf- 
fering, labour,  and  death,  if  only  it  believes  in  the  re- 
demption.    It  is  this  that  the  church  teaches,  and  in  this 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  247 

lies  the  cause  of  the  invention  of  the  redemption  and  of 
the  fall  of  man,  which  is  based  upon  it. 

In  connection  with  this  dogma  of  the  redemption  and 
with  the  preceding  dogma  of  the  providence  of  God, 
there  involuntarily  arise  considerations  which  are  com- 
mon to  both  and  to  all  that  has  been  expounded  in  the 
First  Part  of  the  Theology :  Is  he  the  Trinity,  and  what 
are  his  attributes  ?  Has  God  redeemed  me,  or  not,  and 
how  has  he  redeemed  me  ?  Does  God  provide  both  for 
the  world  and  for  me,  or  not,  and  how  does  he  provide  ? 
What  business  have  I  with  all  that  ?  It  is  clear  to  me 
that  I  shall  not  understand  the  ends  and  means  and 
thought  and  essence  of  God.  If  he  is  the  Trinity,  if  he 
provides  for  us,  if  he  has  redeemed  us,  so  much  the  bet- 
ter for  me.  Providence  and  redemption  are  his  business, 
while  I  have  concerns  of  my  own.  This  is  precisely 
what  I  want  to  know  and  do  not  want  to  err  in :  I  do 
not  want  to  think  that  he  is  providing  for  me,  where  I 
ought  to  provide  for  myself ;  I  do  not  want  to  think  that 
he  will  redeem  me,  where  I  ought  to  redeem  myself. 
Even  if  I  saw  that  everything  which  the  Theology  tells 
me  is  rational,  clear,  and  proved,  I  should  still  not  be 
interested  in  it.  God  is  doing  his  work,  which  I  shall 
never  be  able  to  comprehend,  and  I  have  to  do  my  work. 
What  is  most  important  and  precious  to  me  is  to  have 
my  work  pointed  out  to  me ;  but  in  the  Theology  I  see 
constantly  that  my  work  is  being  made  less  and  less,  and 
in  the  dogma  of  the  redemption  it  is  reduced  to  nothing. 


XL 

In  this  chapter  is  expounded  the  teaching  ahout  the 
second  person  of  the  Trinity.  Chapter  II.  About  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  particular.  Section  I.  About  the 
person  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  or  about  the  mystery  of 
the  incarnation. 

The  importance  and  incomprehensibihty  of  the  dogma ; 
a  short  account  of  it,  the  doctrine  of  the  church  about  it, 
and  the  composition  of  the  doctrine. 

The  redemption  was  accomplished  by  God,  the  second 
person,  the  man  Jesus  Christ.  The  man  Jesus  Christ  is 
both  a  man  and  God.  From  everything  which  has  been 
expounded  heretofore,  the  concepts  of  man  and  God  are 
not  only  quite  different,  but  almost  diametrically  opposed. 
God  is  independence,  man  is  dependence ;  God  is  the 
Creator,  man  is  the  created ;  God  is  good,  man  is  evil. 
How  is  the  combination  of  the  two  concepts,  on  which  all 
this  is  based,  to  be  understood  ?  There  follows  an  ex- 
planation, but  this  explanation,  as  always,  finds  its  expres- 
sion in  the  form  of  a  controversy  with  those  who  do  not 
regard  Christ  as  a  God,  with  those  who  regard  him  as  all 
God,  all  Trinity,  and  with  those  who  regard  him  as  lialf- 
God ;  then  with  those  who  did  not  recognize  a  human 
soul  in  him,  with  those  who  said  that  Jesus  Christ  was 
born  simple,  like  anybody  else ;  then  with  those  who 
separated  the  man  and  God  in  Christ,  with  those 
who  blended  God  with  the  man  in  Christ,  with  those 
who  separated  God  and  the  man,  but  said  that  in  him 
there  was  but  one  will,  and  with    those  who   asserted 

248 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  249 

"  that  Christ  according  to  his  human  substance  was  not 
the  proper  son  of  God  the  Father,  but  a  son  by  grace  and 
adoption  —  " 

"  Amidst  all  these  numberless  heresies  in  regard  to  the 
person  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  the  Orthodox  Church  has  since 
the  apostolic  days  constantly  defended  and  disclosed  one 
and  the  same  teaching,  which  it  has  with  peculiar  force 
expressed  at  the  Fourth  Qi^cumenical  Council  in  the  fol- 
lowing words :  '  Following  our  Divine  Father,  we  all 
unanimously  teach  men  to  profess  the  one  and  selfsame 
Son  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  perfect  in  divinity  and  perfect 
in  manhood,  truly  God  and  truly  man,  composed  of  soul 
and  body ;  consubstantial  with  us  according  to  the  man- 
hood ;  in  everything  hke  us,  except  sin ;  born  before  all 
ages  of  the  Father  according  to  the  Divinity,  but  in  the 
latter  days  according  to  the  manhood  of  Mary  the  Virgin, 
the  Mother  of  God,  for  the  sake  of  us  and  of  our  salva- 
tion ;  the  one  and  selfsame  Christ,  the  Son,  the  Lord,  the 
only-begotten,  unblendingly,  unchangeably,  indivisibly, 
inseparably  recognized  in  two  essences  (no  distinction  of 
the  two  essences  being  removed  by  the  union,  but  the 
attribute  of  each  essence  being  preserved,  as  concurring 
in  one  person  and  one  hypostasis) ;  not  cut  or  divided 
into  two  persons,  but  one  and  the  same  Son,  and  the 
only-begotten  God,  the  Word,  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  as 
anciently  the  prophets  and  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  himself 
have  taught  us,  and  as  the  symbol  of  our  fathers  has 
transmitted  it  to  us.'  From  this  we  see  that  the  whole 
teaching  of  the  Orthodox  Church  about  the  person  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  consists  of  two  chief  propositions :  I.  of  this, 
that  in  Jesus  Christ  there  are  two  essences,  the  divine  and 
the  human,  and  11.  of  this,  that  these  two  essences  form 
in  him  one  hypostasis."     (pp.  46  and  47.) 

It  is  impossible  not  to  stop  here.  The  words  of  this 
definition  are  a  series  of  contradictions.  The  concept 
of  essence,  as  connected  with  Gud,  excludes  the  concept  of 


250  CKITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

God,  since  an  unlimited  spirit  cannot  have  any  essence. 
Two  essences  form  one  hypostasis.  But  hypostasis  can 
have  no  meaning,  since  hypostasis  has  no  significance 
in  language  and  has  never  been  defined.  There  is  no 
rational  sense  in  the  dogma,  but  this  dogma,  like  all  the 
others,  is  based  on  the  church.  The  church  is  holy  and 
infallible,  and  ever  since  it  has  existed,  from  the  very 
beginning,  it  has  asserted  this  dogma.  It  is  expressed, 
the  Theology  says,  in  Holy  Tradition  and  in  Scripture. 
Let  us  see  whether  it  is  so. 

Though  I  have  decided  to  pass  cursorily  all  this  Second 
Part,  nevertheless,  at  this  spot  where  it  is  proved  that 
Christ  is  God,  I  feel  that  it  is  necessary  to  stop,  since  this 
place,  though  inserted  in  the  middle,  as  it  were,  of  the  dis- 
closure of  further  truths,  which  have  been  expounded  in  the 
beginning,  in  reality  is  the  foundation  of  the  dogma  about 
the  Trinity,  which  was  put  forward  in  the  beginning  ;  and 
if  there  is  a  dogma  about  the  Trinity,  it  results  only  from 
recognizing  Christ  as  God.  Only  later  is  the  third  person  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  attached  to  it.  The  beginning  of  the  asser- 
tion that  God  is  not  one,  but  has  persons,  is  due  to  the 
deification  of  Christ.  This  is  what  Art.  133  says:  "Our 
Lord  Jesus  has  a  divine  essence  and  is  the  Son  of  God." 
This  article  has  for  a  purpose  the  proof  that  Jesus  Christ 
has  the  divine  essence,  but  not  in  the  sense  in  which  any 
man  created  by  God  has  it,  but  differently  from  all  other 
men,  —  he  is  the  second  person  of  God.  The  same  meaning 
is  ascribed  to  the  words  "  the  Son  of  God."  It  is  proved 
that  Jesus  Christ  is  not  a  son  of  God  in  the  sense  in 
which  other  men  are,  but  an  especial  Son  of  God,  the  only 
one,  the  second  person  of  the  Trinity.  Here  are  the 
proofs  from  the  Old  Testament : 

"  In  Psalm  ii.,  which  all  the  holy  apostles  (Acts  iv.  24- 
28  ;  xiii.  32-34 ;  Heb.  i.  5  ;  v.  5)  and  the  ancient  Jews 
themselves  refer  to  the  Messiah.  Tlie  Messiah  witnesses 
about  himself :  The  Lord  hath  said  unto  me,  Thou  art  my 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  251 

Son ;  this  day  have  I  begotten  thee  (Psalm  ii.  7),  that  is, 
I  have  begotten  or  beget  eternally.  In  Psalm  ex.,  which 
by  the  holy  apostles  (Acts  ii.  34-36 ;  Heb.  i.  13 ;  vii.  21, 
24,  25)  and  by  the  ancient  Jews  is  also  referred  to  the 
Messiah,  God  himself  says  to  liim  :  From  the  womb,  that 
is,  from  my  substance,  before  the  morning,  that  is  before 
all  time,  have  I  begotten  thee  (v.  3).  The  prophet 
Micah,  in  prophesying  that  the  Messiah  would  arise  from 
Bethlehem,  added  that  he  had  also  another  origin,  an 
eternal  one :  Whose  goings  forth  have  been  from  of  old, 
from  everlasting  (Mic.  v.  2),  and  this  prophecy  has  also 
been  referred  to  the  Messiah  by  the  whole  Jewish  Church 
(Matt.  ii.  4-6  ;  John  vii.  42). 

"(2)  By  the  Lord  God  (Adonai,  Elohim),  and  even 
Jehovah,  a  name  which  is  exclusively  applied  to  the  one 
God.  Such,  for  example  are :  (a)  the  words  of  Psalm 
xlv. :  Thy  throne,  0  God,  is  for  ever  and  ever :  the  sceptre 
of  thy  kingdom  is  a  right  sceptre.  Thou  lovest  righteous- 
ness, and  hatest  wickedness :  therefore  God,  thy  God,  hath 
anointed  thee  with  the  oil  of  gladness  above  thy  fellows 
(v.  6-7),  which  the  apostle  (Heb.  i.  7-9)  and  the  ancient 
jews  have  referred  to  the  Messiah ;  (b)  the  words  of 
Psalm  ex. :  The  Lord  said  unto  my  Lord,  Sit  thou  at  my 
right  hand  (v.  1),  which  Christ  himself  (Matt.  xxii.  41- 
46)  refers  to  the  Messiah ;  (c)  the  prophecy  of  Malachi : 
Behold,  I  will  send  my  messenger,  and  he  shall  prepare 
the  way  before  me :  and  the  Lord,  whom  ye  seek,  shall 
suddenly  come  to  his  temple,  even  the  messenger  of  the 
covenant,  whom  ye  dehght  in :  behold,  he  shall  come, 
saith  the  Lord  of  hosts  (Mai.  iii.  1),  which  the  Saviour 
himself  (Matt.  xi.  10,  11)  refers  to  the  Messiah;  (d)  the 
prophecy,  twice  repeated  by  Jeremiah  :  Behold,  the  days 
come,  saith  the  Lord,  that  I  will  raise  unto  David  a 
righteous  Branch,  and  a  King  shall  reign  and  prosper,  and 
shall  execute  judgment  and  justice  in  the  earth.  In  his 
days  Judah  shall  be  saved,  and  Israel  shall  dwell  safely : 


252  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

and  this  is  his  uame  whereby  he  shall  be  called,  the  Lord 
(Jehovah)  is  righteous  to  us  (Jer.  xxiii,  5,  6 ;  of.  xxxiii. 
15,  16)."     (pp.  47  and  48.) 

Not  one  of  these  places  refers  to  Jesus  Christ.  The 
Psalmist  is  speaking  of  himself,  and  not  of  Christ.  If  it 
were  necessary  to  understand  Christ  by  "  I,  me,"  he  would 
have  said  so. 

"  His  goings  forth  have  been  from  of  old,  from  everlast- 
ing," means,  that  the  goings  forth,  that  is,  the  origin  of 
each  man,  are  from  the  beginning  of  everything.  There 
is  nothing  in  common  here  with  the  divinity  of  Christ. 
The  words  of  Psalm  xlv.  refer  only  to  God,  and  not  to 
Christ.  The  prophecies  of  Malachi  refer  to  any  prophet. 
The  words  of  Jeremiah  refer  to  a  certain  king,  and  there 
is  not  a  shadow  of  a  reference  to  Christ. 

Those  are  all  the  so-called  confirmations  of  the  divinity 
of  Christ  from  the  Old  Testament.  There  follow  confir- 
mations from  the  New  Testament.  (1)  Here  is  the  passage 
from  the  conversation  witli  Nicodemus,  which  is  adduced 
in  proof  of  the  divinity  of  Christ: 

"  13.  And  no  man  hath  ascended  up  to  heaven,  but  he 
that  came  down  from  heaven,  even  the  Son  of  man  which 
is  in  heaven.  .  .  .  For  God  so  loved  the  world,  that  he 
gave  liis  only-begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in 
him  should  not  perish,  but  have  everlasting  life.  .  .  .  He 
that  believeth  on  him,  is  not  condemned :  but  he  that 
believeth  not,  is  condemned  already,  because  he  hath  not 
believed  in  the  name  of  the  only-begotten  Son  of  God 
(John  iii.  13,  16,  18).  Here  (a)  the  Saviour  in  the  first 
words  clearly  ascribes  to  himself  onmipresence,  a  prop- 
erty which  does  not  belong  to  one  of  the  created  beings ; 

(b)  then  he  calls  himself  the  only-begotten  Son  of  God 
(ju-ovoyevT^s),  no  doubt  in  the  proper  sense,  that  is,  as  being 
born  from  the  essence  of  God,  having  a  divine  essence, 
for  to  this  Son  belongs  omnipresence,  a  divine  attribute ; 

(c)  finally  he  bears  witness  that  without  faith  in  him  as 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  253 

the  only-begotteu  Son  of  God,  who  is  omnipresent,  no  sal- 
vation is  possible  for  men."     (pp.  48  and  49.) 

To  Nicodemus's  question  as  to  how  a  man  can  be  reborn 
in  order  to  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  Jesus  replies 
that  no  one  can  enter  heaven  and  come  to  God  except  he 
who  knows  God  already,  who  already  ascends  heaven. 
No  matter  how  these  words  may  be  understood,  they  can- 
not be  interpreted  in  such  a  way  as  that  Jesus  is  speak- 
ing about  himself,  since  he  is  apparently  speaking  about 
all  men  and  directly  says  that  what  he  is  speaking  about 
is  the  son  of  man.  Independently  of  the  fact  that  from 
the  meaning  of  the  whole  conversation  with  Nicodemus, 
which  begins  with  Jesus'  saying  that  no  one  shall  see  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  if  he  is  not  born  from  above,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  Jesus  does  not  refer  it  to  liimself,  but  to  all 
men  ;  independently  of  this  obvious  meaning,  everything 
which  is  said,  is  said  now  of  the  sou  of  man  and  now  of 
the  only-begotten,  or,  more  correctly,  of  the  one-begotten 
son,  but  it  does  not  say  that  this  son  of  God  is  exclusively 
Christ.  Above  all,  these  words  cannot  have  the  mean- 
ing which  the  church  ascribes  to  them,  because  the  word 
"  son  of  man "  has  the  definite  meaning  of  the  son  of 
man,  that  is  of  men,  and  the  appellation  of  the  son  of  God 
is  precisely  what  Christ  teaches  the  men  to  call  them- 
selves, and  so  Christ,  if  he  had  intended  to  say  that  he 
stood  in  an  exclusive  relation  to  God,  would  have  been 
compelled  to  choose  another  expression  in  order  to  give  it 
that  meaning.  I  cannot  permit  myself  to  believe  that 
Jesus  should  not  have  been  able  or  willing  to  express 
such  an  important  dogma.  If,  then,  he  called  himself  a 
son  of  God,  and  called  other  people  also  sons  of  God,  he 
wanted  to  say  that,  so  that  the  text  expresses  precisely  the 
opposite  of  what  the  author  wants  to  prove. 

I  am  not  going  to  quote  here  evidences  from  the  gos- 
pels which  directly  deny  the  divinity  of  Christ,  for  I  will 
quote  them  in  their  proper  place,  but  I  will  analyze  those 


254  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

which  are  quoted  here  in  what  purports  to  be  a  confirma- 
tion of  the  divinity  of  Christ.  (2)  Another  passage  is  the 
parable  about  the  "  vineyard,  which  a  certain  man  planted, 
and  set  an  hedge  about  it,  and  let  out  to  husbandmen 
(Mark  xii.  1)  ;  understanding  by  it  the  heavenly  Father, 
who  had  planted  his  church  among  the  Jewish  nation 
and  had  turned  it  over  to  the  leaders  of  the  nation,  the 
Saviour  said  that  at  first  the  master  of  the  vineyard,  at  a 
certain  time,  sent  his  servants,  one  after  another,  to  the 
husbandmen,  in  order  to  receive  of  the  fruit  of  the  vine- 
yard (v.  2).  But  when  the  husbandmen  beat  one  of  the 
messengers,  and  sent  him  away  shamefully  handled,  and 
even  killed  others  (v.  3-5),  the  master  decided  to  send  his 
son  to  them  :  Having  yet  therefore  one  son,  his  well- 
beloved,  he  sent  him  also  last  unto  them,  saying,  They 
will  reverence  my  son.  But  those  husbandmen  said 
among  themselves.  This  is  the  heir ;  come,  let  us  kill  Mm, 
and  the  inheritance  shall  be  ours.  And  they  took  him, 
and  killed  him,  and  cast  him  out  of  the  vineyard  (v. 
6-8)."     (p.  49.) 

In  this  parable  the  husbandmen,  according  to  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  church,  mean  the  Jews,  the  fruits  are 
the  good  deeds,  the  master  means  God,  then  why  should 
the  son  mean  the  son  only  ?  According  to  the  spirit  of  the 
parable,  the  son,  too,  must  have  and  does  have  a  trans- 
ferred meaning.  The  whole  parable  proves  that  by  the 
son   something  is   to  be  understood,  only  not  the  son. 

"  (3)  When  the  Saviour  cured  him  that  was  diseased, 
and  the  Jews  sought  to  slay  him,  because  he  had  done 
these  things  on  the  Sabbath  day  (John  v.  16),  he,  as 
though  in  justification,  replied  to  them  :  My  Father  work- 
eth  hitherto,  and  I  work  (v.  17).  This  answer,  in  which 
the  Lord  Jesus  ascribes  to  himself  an  equality  with  God  the 
Father  in  right  and  power  —  " 

Jesus  told  all  to  pray  to  God  the  Father,  and  to  call  and 
regard  God  as  a  father,  and  so  this  place  can  only  provQ 


CRITIQUE   OF   DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  255 

the  opposite,  namely  that  Jesus  regarded  himself  as  just 
such  a  man  as  everybody  else,  and  defined  his  relation  to 
God  just  like  the  relation  of  all  other  men  to  God.  His 
words,  "  I  am  working  as  my  Father  worketh,"  apparently 
have  the  same  meaning  as  the  words,  "  Be  as  perfect  as 
your  Father ! "  Here  he  refers  his  words  to  others,  but 
when  he  says,  "  I  am  working  as  my  Father  worketh,"  and 
refers  these  words  to  himself,  he  speaks  of  himself  as  man, 
and  not  as  God, 

"  The  Jews  understood  it  in  the  same  way :  Therefore 
the  Jews  sought  the  more  to  kill  him,  because  he  not 
only  had  broken  the  Sabbath,  but  said  also  that  God  was 
his  Father,  making  himself  equal  with  God  (v.  18)." 
(p.  49.) 

These  words,  no  matter  how  one  may  read  them,  have 
no  other  meaning  but  that  St.  John,  wishing  to  clear  up 
the  real  meaning  of  Christ's  sonhood  to  God,  represents 
an  example  of  a  false  comprehension  of  Christ's  words. 
These  words  denote  only  that  the  Jews,  rebuking  Christ, 
fell  into  the  same  error  into  which  the  church  is  falling 
now  when  it  praises  him.  These  words  can  have  no 
other  meaning. 

"  At  that  time  Jesus  did  not  remark  to  the  Jews  that 
they  comprehended  him  wrongly,  but  continued :  Verily; 
verily,  I  say  unto  you.  The  Son  can  do  nothing  of  liimself, 
but  what  he  seeth  the  Father  do:  for  what  things 
soever  he  doeth,  these  also  doeth  the  Son  likewise ! 
(V.  19)." 

These  words  are  said  in  reply  to  the  reproaches  that 
he  and  his  disciples  are  breaking  the  Sabbath.  He  says 
that  God  and  he  himself  do  not  stop  working,  or  provid- 
ing, so  why  should  man  stop  ?  "  For  as  the  Father  raiseth 
up  the  dead,  and  quickeneth  them ;  even  so  the  Son 
quickeneth  whom  he  will.  For  the  Father  judgeth  no 
man ;  but  hath  committed  all  judgment  unto  the  Son  : 
That  all  men  should  honour  the  Son,  even  as  they  honour 


256  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

the  Father.  He  that  honoureth  not  the  Son,  honoureth 
not  the  Father  which  hath  sent  him  (John  v.  21-23)." 

What  is  said  about  the  heahng  on  the  Sabbath,  is  also 
said  here,  namely,  that  a  man  may  cure  on  the  Sabbath, 
and  may  decide  for  himself  what  is  to  be  done,  so  long  as 
he  lives  in  a  godly  manner  and  tries  to  be  as  perfect 
as  the  Father,  and  that  man  is  the  Son  of  God  and  ought 
to  be  honoured  like  God. 

"  For  as  the  Father  hath  life  in  himself,  so  hath  he 
given  to  the  Son  to  have  life  in  himself  (v.  26*)."     (p.  50.) 

This  means  only  what  Jesus  has  been  teaching  all  the 
time,  that  the  true  life  is  the  knowledge  of  the  true  God, 
and  that  each  man  has  this  life  in  himself.  All  these 
passages,  without  speaking  of  their  significance,  have  one 
undeniable  meaning,  namely,  that  Jesus  Christ  acknowl- 
edges himself  to  be  precisely  such  a  son  of  God  and  of 
man  as  all  other  men,  and  not  only  does  not  equal  him- 
self to  God,  as  the  Jews  slanderously  say  he  did,  but  con- 
stantly opposes  himself  to  God.  The  words  "  my  beloved 
Son,"  even  if  they  are  spoken  from  heaven,  mean  only 
that  Christ  is  a  son  of  God,  like  any  other  man,  but  beloved 
of  God. 

"  (4)  To  the  evidence  of  the  Old  Testament  writings : 
Search  the  Scriptures ;  for  in  them  ye  think  ye  have 
eternal  life :  And  they  are  they  w^liich  testify  of  me 
(John  V.  39)."     (p.  50.) 

The  Scriptures  speak  of  the  Prophet,  of  his  teaching, 
but  there  is  not  even  a  hint  as  to  his  divinity. 

"  Another  similar  incident  presented  itself  soon.  When 
the  Saviour  once  came  into  a  temple  at  Jerusalem,  and 
the  Jews,  surrounding  him,  kept  asking  persistently : 
How  long  dost  thou  make  us  to  doubt  ?  If  thou  be  the 
Christ,  tell  us  plainly  (John  x.  24),  he,  replying  to  them, 
said,  among  other  things :  I  and  my  Father  are  one 
(V.  30)."     (p.  50.) 

This  is  a  conscious  lie.     He  did  not  reply,  among  other 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  257 

things,  "  I  and  my  Father  are  one,"  but  spoke  those  words 
for  the  following  reason :  He  did  not  say  it  "  among 
other  things,"  but  spoke  as  follows  :  Jesus  answered  them, 
I  told  you,  and  ye  believed  not :  the  works  that  I  do  in 
my  Father's  name,  they  bear  witness  of  me.  But  ye  be- 
lieve not,  because  ye  are  not  of  my  sheep,  as  I  said  unto 
you.  My  sheep  hear  my  voice,  and  I  know  them,  and 
they  follow  me :  And  I  give  unto  them  eternal  life  ;  and 
they  shall  never  perish,  neither  shall  any  pluck  them  out 
of  my  hand.  My  Father,  which  gave  them  me,  is 
greater  than  all ;  and  none  is  able  to  pluck  them  out  of 
my  Father's  hand.  I  and  my  Father  are  one  (John  x. 
25-30). 

He  said  distinctly  that  his  sheep,  that  is,  those  who 
listen  to  him,  cannot  be  taken  from  him,  because  he  leads 
them  by  the  will  of  God.  And  what  he  teaches  them  is 
that  in  which  is  the  will  of  God. 

Only  that  do  the  words,  "  I  and  my  Father  are  one," 
mean.  And  in  confirmation  of  the  statement  that  these 
words  mean  nothing  else,  and  in  order  to  caution  people 
not  to  give  a  false  interpretation  to  these  words,  the 
Evangelist  immediately  adds  the  false,  coarse  conception 
of  the  Jews,  showing  in  this  manner  how  the  words  were 
not  to  be  understood. 

This  passage,  wliich  clearly  denies  the  divinity  of  Christ, 
is  rendered  by  the  Evangelist  as  follows :  the  words  so 
irritated  those  who  were  asking  him,  that  they  "  took  up 
stones  to  stone  him,  saying.  For  a  good  work  we  stone 
thee  not ;  but  for  blasphemy,  and  because  that  thou,  being 
a  man,  makest  thyself  God  (v.  31,  33)."  About  this 
passage  the  Theology  says : 

"  However,  even  at  that  particular  time  the  Saviour  not 
only  failed  to  remark  to  the  Jews  that  he  did  not  at  all 
call  himself  God,  as  they  thought,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
proceeded  to  prove  that  idea,  by  calling  himself  directly 
the  Son  of  God."     (p.  50.) 


258  CRITIQUE   OF   DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY 

How  else  was  he  to  have  called  himself,  in  order  to 
prove  to  them  that  he  did  not  consider  himself  to  be  God, 
but  a  son  of  God,  which  he  taught  all  men  to  be  ?  Here 
is  the  whole  passage :  Then  the  Jews  took  up  stones  again 
to  stone  him.  Jesus  answered  them,  Many  good  works 
have  I  shewed  you  from  my  Father ;  for  which  of  those 
works  do  ye  stonp  me  ?  The  Jews  answered  him,  saying, 
For  a  good  work  we  stone  thee  not ;  but  for  blasphemy ; 
and  because  that  thou,  being  a  man,  makest  thyself  God. 
Jesus  answered  them.  Is  it  not  written  in  your  law,  I  said, 
Ye  are  gods  ?  (Psalm  Ixxxii.  6).  If  he  called  them  gods, 
unto  whom  the  word  of  God  came,  and  the  Scripture  cannot 
be  broken ;  say  ye  of  him,  whom  the  Father  hath  sancti- 
fied, and  sent  into  the  world.  Thou  blasphemest ;  because  I 
said,  I  am  the  Son  of  God  ?  If  I  do  not  the  works  of  my 
Father,  believe  me  not.  But  if  I  do,  though  ye  believe 
not  me,  believe  the  works :  that  ye  may  know,  and  be- 
lieve, that  the  Father  is  in  me,  and  I  in  him  (John  x. 
31-38). 

How  could  he  have  said  more  plainly  that  he  was  not 
God,  but  that  those  were  in  whom  was  the  word  of  God, 
and  that  he  called  himself,  as  all  other  people,  a  son  of 
God.  But  the  Theology  takes  this  as  a  proof  that  Jesus 
Christ  confessed  that  he  was  God,  equal  to  God,  and 
proceeds : 

"  (5)  A  third,  similar,  but  stiU  more  striking  case  hap- 
pened before  the  death  of  the  Saviour.  He  was  brought 
bound  before  Pilate  to  be  judged.  Here,  after  listening 
to  many  false  witnesses  against  Jesus,  the  high  priest 
finally  rose  and  solemnly  asked  him :  I  adjure  thee  by 
the  living  God,  that  thou  tell  us  whether  thou  be  the 
Christ  the  Son  of  God  (Matt.  xxvi.  63 ;  cf.  Mark  xiv.  61), 
and  Jesus,  without  any  hesitation  rephed :  I  am :  and  ye 
shall  see  the  Son  of  man  sitting  on  the  right  hand  of 
power,  and  coming  in  the  clouds  of  heaven  (Mark  xiv. 
62).    Then  the  high  priest  rent  his  clothes,  saying.  He  hath 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  259 

spoken  blasphemy ;  what  further  ueed  have  we  of  wit- 
nesses ?  behold,  now  ye  have  heard  his  blasphemy.  What 
think  ye  ?  They  answered  and  said,  He  is  guilty  of  death 
(Matt.  xxvi.  65,  66).  And  bringing  Jesus  before  Pilate, 
the  Jews  said  to  him :  We  have  a  law,  and  by  our  law  he 
ought  to  die,  because  he  made  himself  the  Son  of  God 
(John  xix.  7).  Thus  the  Saviour  did  not  hesitate  to 
confirm  the  truth  of  his  divinity  by  his  own  death." 
(p.  51.) 

Christ  is  again  asked  in  court,  not  whether  he  recog- 
nizes himself  to  be  God,  —  there  is  not  even  a  question 
about  that,  —  but  whether  he  is  the  Son  of  God,  and 
Christ  rephes :  •'  I  am,"  and  immediately  afterward 
speaks  of  the  significance  of  the  Son  of  man,  who,  accord- 
ing to  his  expression,  "  is  sitting  on  the  right  hand  of 
power,  in  the  clouds."  He  is  condemned  for  calling  him- 
self "  the  Son  of  God,"  and  from  this  is  deduced  the  proof 
that  he  is  God.  The  Jews  are  all  the  time  accusing 
Christ,  who  is  calling  all  to  acknowledge  his  sonhood  of 
God,  and  who  is  blasphemous  because  he  makes  himself 
the  equal  of  God.  Christ  keeps  replying  that  not  he  is 
one-born,  near  to  God,  the  Son  of  God,  but  the  Son  of 
man,  and  he  repeats  the  same  in  court,  and  for  this  he 
suffers  capital  punishment.  And  this  is  taken  as  a  proof 
of  his  acknowledging  himself  to  be  God,  and,  considering 
the  divinity  of  Christ  proved  by  himself,  the  Theology 
sees  a  further  confirmation  of  it  in  the  fact  that  Christ 
ascribes  to  himself,  as  the  Son  of  man,  the  one-bom  God, 
the  attribute  of  a  divinity.  In  proof  of  this  are  adduced 
the  following  verses :  And  no  man  hath  ascended  up  to 
heaven,  but  he  that  came  down  from  heaven,  even  the 
Son  of  man  which  is  in  heaven  (John  iii.  13).  For 
where  two  or  three  are  gathered  together  in  my  name, 
there  am  I  in  the  midst  of  them  (]\Iatt.  xviii.  20). 
Teaching  them  to  observe  all  things  whatsoever  I  have 
commanded  you :  and,  lo,  I  am  with  you  alway,  even 


260  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

unto  the  end  of  the  world.  Amen  (xxviii.  20).  And 
now,  O  Father,  glorify  thou  me  with  thiue  own  self  with 
the  glory  which  I  had  with  thee  before  the  world  was 
(John  xvii.  5).  As  the  Father  knoweth  me,  even  so  know 
I  the  Father :  and  I  lay  down  my  hfe  for  the  sheep 
(John  X.  15).  All  things  are  delivered  unto  me  of  my 
Father :  and  no  man  knoweth  the  Sou,  but  the  Father ; 
neither  knoweth  any  man  the  Father,  save  the  Son,  and  he 
to  whomsoever  the  Son  will  reveal  him  (Matt.  xi.  27). 

All  these  verses,  according  to  the  Theology,  show  that 
Christ  ascribed  to  himself  divine  attributes,  —  omnipres- 
ence, self-existence,  eternity,  almightiness,  omniscience. 

All  these  verses  speak  only  of  the  oneness  of  birth  of 
the  Sou  of  man  with  God,  but  in  no  way  prove  the  espe- 
cial divinity  of  Christ,  as  the  Theology  tries  to  prove. 
On  the  same  basis  it  would  be  just  as  correct  to  ascribe  a 
Godhead  to  Christ's  disciples,  to  whom  he  on  every  side 
repeated  one  and  the  same  thought,  that  they  were  in  him 
and  he  was  in  them,  just  as  the  Father  was  in  him. 
With  this  end  the  proofs  of  the  Godhead  of  Christ  as  ex- 
pressed by  him.  After  that  follow  proofs  from  the  words 
of  the  apostles. 

"  III.  As  Christ  the  Saviour  taught  about  himself,  even 
so  his  disciples  taught  about  him,  according  to  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  Holy  Ghost.  For  example  :  (1)  The  Evangelist 
Matthew,  representing  the  miraculous  conception  of  the 
Saviour,  refers  to  him  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah :  Behold,  a 
virgin  shall  be  with  child,  and  shall  bring  forth  a  son,  and 
they  shall  call  his  name  Emmanuel,  which  being  inter- 
preted is,  God  with  us  (Matt.  i.  23 ;  Is.  vii.   14)."     (p. 

51-) 

I  quote  everything  which  is  said  about  it  in  this  Theol- 
ogy, witliout  leaving  out  a  single  line.  This  is  regarded 
as  the  first  proof  from  the  words  of  the  apostles.  One  reads 
and  wonders  how  it  is  possible  to  explain  these  words  as  a 
proof  that  Christ  is  God.     Emmanuel  is  a  name  which 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  261 

means  "  God  with  us."  This  passage  is  quoted  from  the 
prophet  to  prove  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah.  What  con- 
nection there  is  between  tliese  words  and  the  divinity  of 
Christ  is  absohitely  inexplicable.     Second  proof : 

"  (2)  The  Evangelist  Mark  begins  his  Gospel  with  the 
words :  The  beginning  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Son  of  God  (Mark  i.  1),  and  later,  when  he  tells  of  the  bap- 
tism of  the  Saviour,  he  says:  And  straightway  coming  up 
out  of  the  water,  he  saw  the  heavens  opened,  and  the 
Spirit  like  a  dove  descending  upon  him  :  and  there  came 
a  voice  from  heaven,  saying,  Thou  art  my  beloved  Son,  in 
whom  I  am  well  pleased  (Mark  i.  10,  11)." 

The  words  of  the  Gospel,  "  The  Son  of  God,"  and,  "  Thou 
art  my  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased,"  signify 
only  that  the  beloved  Son  of  God  can  by  no  means  be  God 
himself. 

"  (3)  The  Evangelist  Luke  quotes  the  prophecy  of  the 
angel  to  Zechariah  about  the  coming  birth  of  his  son  John, 
the  forerunner  of  the  Saviour :  And  many  of  the  children 
of  Israel  shall  he  turn  to  the  Lord  their  God.  And  he 
shall  go  before  him  in  the  spirit  and  power  of  Elias 
(Luke  i.  16,  17)."     (p.  52.) 

The  words  of  the  prophecy  of  the  angel  to  Zacharias 
refer  to  God,  and  not  to  Christ.     Fourth  proof : 

"  (4)  St.  John  begins  his  Gospel  with  the  words :  In 
the  beginning  was  the  Word,  and  the  Word  was  with 
God,  and  the  Word  was  God,  The  same  was  in  the  begin- 
ning with  God.  All  things  were  made  by  him  ;  and  with- 
out him  was  not  anything  made  that  was  made  (John  i. 
1-3),  that  is,  he  directly  calls  the  Word  God,  represents 
it  as  existing  from  the  beginning,  or  from  eternity,  separate 
from  God,  and  as  having  created  everything  which  exists. 
Farther  on  he  writes  :  And  the  Word  was  made  flesh,  and 
dwelt  among  us  (and  we  beheld  his  glory,  the  glory  as  of 
the  only-begotten  of  the  Father,  full  of  grace  and  truth  — 
for  the  law  was  given  by  Moses,  but  grace  and  truth  came 


262  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

by  Jesus  Christ  (John  i.  14,  17),  that  is,  he  bears  testimony 
to  the  fact  that  this  Word  is  indeed  the  only-begotten  Son 
of  God  the  Father,  that  it  became  incarnated,  and  is  none 
but  Jesus  Christ."     (p.  52.) 

That  the  Word  is  none  but  Jesus  Christ,  who  has  created 
everything,  not  only  does  not  appear  from  anything,  but  to 
any  one  who  will  carefully  read  the  whole  chapter  it  will 
become  clear  that  the  word  "  Logos  "  has  a  general,  meta- 
physical meaning,  which  is  quite  independent  of  Christ. 
No  matter  how  this  chapter  is  understood,  it  is  evident 
that  its  meaning  is  not  that  Christ  is  God.  In  order  to 
say  that,  it  was  not  necessary  to  speak  of  the  Word,  nor 
of  the  Light,  nor  of  the  birth  of  men.  The  proof  which 
the  church  deduces  from  this  chapter  about  the  divinity  of 
Christ  is  based  on  the  arbitrary  connection  of  one  sentence 
of  verse  1,  where  it  says,  "  In  the  beginning  was  the 
Word,"  with  verse  14,  where  it  says  that  "  the  Word  was 
made  flesh,"  and  then  with  verse  17,  where  it  says  that 
grace  was  given  by  Jesus  Christ.  The  first  sentence  of 
the  first  verse  does  not  stand  alone,  but  is  a  connecting 
sentence  between  the  first  and  the  last.  After  that, 
mention  is  made  of  the  light  which  shines  on  every  man 
who  conies  into  the  world,  of  the  birth  of  men,  of  the 
power  or  possibility  for  all  to  become  the  children  of 
God,  —  not  of  Christ  alone  who  was  begotten  of  God,  but 
of  the  many  which  were  born  of  God.  All  such  ideas,  far 
from  confirming  the  proposition  that  the  Word  is  Christ, 
show  directly  that  the  Word,  or  the  Logos,  is  the  begin- 
ning of  the  true  life  of  all  men.  Then  mention  is  made 
of  the  fact  that  the  Word  was  made  flesh,  and  from  the 
subsequent  verses  we  must  assume  that  the  appearance  of 
Jesus  Christ  is  meant.  But  here,  in  the  17th  verse, 
nothing  is  said  about  this  Word  being  Christ  himself,  but 
there  is  reference  to  the  manner  in  which  this  Word  found 
its  expression  for  men ;  it  found  its  expression  in  grace 
and  truth,  and,  it  seems,  excludes  every  possibility  of 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    TUEOLOGY  263 

acknowledging  Christ  to  be  God ;  immediately  it  goes  on 
to  say :  "  No  man  hath  seen  God  at  any  time,"  so  that 
the  words,  "  We  beheld  his  glory,"  can  by  no  means  be 
referred  to  Christ  the  God,  whereas  this  very  passage 
is  regarded  as  the  best  proof  of  the  divinity  of  Christ. 

"  Farther  on,"  says  the  Theology  :  "  No  man  hath  seen 
God  at  any  time ;  the  only-l)egotten  Son,  which  is  in  the 
bosom  of  the  Father,  he  hath  declared  (v.  18),  that  is, 
he  shows  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  only-begotten  Son  in 
the  proper  sense,  as  existing  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father." 
(p.  52.) 

If  the  only-begotten  Son  of  the  Father  professed  the 
God  whom  no  man  can  ever  see,  then  it  is  evident  that 
this  Son  is  not  God.  But  the  Theology  makes  the  opposite 
deduction : 

"  And  concluding  his  Gospel,"  says  the  Theology,  "  the 
evangelist  remarks  that  the  purpose  of  his  writing  was  to 
prove  the  Godhead  of  Jesus  Christ :  But  those  are  written 
that  ye  might  believe  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  the  Sou  of 
God ;  and  that  believing  ye  might  have  life  through  his 
name  (John  xx.  31)." 

That  is  simply  untrue.  John's  remark  does  not  intend 
to  prove  the  divinity  of  Christ,  but  speaks  only  of  Christ's 
sonhood  to  God. 

"  The  same  apostle  in  the  beginning  of  his  first  Epistle 
calls  Christ  the  Word  of  life  (1  John  i.  1),  that  eternal 
life  which  was  with  the  Father,  and  was  manifested  to 
us  (v.  2),  and  at  the  end  of  the  Epistle  he  says :  And  we 
know  that  the  Son  of  God  is  come,  and  hath  given  us  an 
understanding,  that  we  may  know  him  that  is  true,  and 
we  are  in  him  that  is  true,  even  in  his  Son  Jesus  Christ. 
This  is  the  true  God,  and  eternal  life  (1  John  v.  20), 
calling  here  the  true  Son  of  God  and  true  God  him  whom 
before  he  had  called  the  eternal  life."     (p.  52.) 

This  discussion  is  simply  unscrupulous.  The  words, 
**he  that  is  true,"  can  apparently  not  be  referred  to  Christ, 


264  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

but  refer  to  God.  Those  are  all  the  proofs  from  the 
Gospels. 

"  Finally  in  Eevelation  are  frequently  quoted  the  words 
of  the  Saviour  who  appeared  to  him :  I  am  Alpha  and 
Omega,  the  beginning  and  the  ending,  the  first  and  the 
last  (Rev.  i.  8,  11,  17,  18;  ii.  8;  xxii.  13),  and  there  it 
is  said  that  Christ  is  the  prince  of  the  kings  of  the  earth 
(i.  5),  and  king  of  kings  and  lord  of  lords  (xix.  16)." 
(pp.  52  and  53.) 

As  any  one  may  see,  even  in  these  passages  of  Revela- 
tion, a  book  which  has  no  significance  for  the  explanation 
of  the  teachings  of  Christ,  there  is  not  even  an  indication 
of  the  divinity  of  Christ.  Then  follow  proofs  from  the 
apostles. 

"  (5)  St.  Jude,  the  apostle,  representing  the  heretics, 
says :  For  there  are  certain  men  crept  in  unawares,  who 
were  before  of  old  ordained  to  this  condemnation,  ungodly 
men,  turning  the  grace  of  our  God  into  lasciviousness, 
and  denying  the  only  Lord  God,  and  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
(Jude  4)."     (p.  53.) 

The  oldest  texts  of  the  Epistle  of  St.  Jude  read  as 
follows :  "  Denying  the  only  lord  and  master  (Sco-ttotj^i/), 
Jesus  Christ."  In  the  later,  and  in  our  texts,  it  runs  as 
follows :  "  Denying  the  only  Lord  God,  and  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ."  In  the  first  reading  there  cannot  even  be 
a  question  about  the  Godhead  of  Christ ;  in  the  second, 
one  would  think,  there  can  be  even  less  any  question 
about  the  Godhead  of  Christ,  for  here  God  is  called,  as 
he  is  always  called,  "  only,"  and  after  him  Jesus  Christ 
is  mentioned  as  a  prophet  or  righteous  man.  But  the 
absence  of  such  proofs  are  regarded  as  proofs.  Even  such 
are  the  proofs  from  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul.  Here  they 
are: 

"(6)  St.  Paul  calls  the  Saviour  in  his  Epistles:  God 
manifest  in  the  flesh  (1  Tim.  iii.  16),  the  Lord  of  glory 
(1  Cor.  ii.  8),  the  great  God  (Tit.  ii.  11-lS),  God  blessed 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  265 

for  ever  (Rom.  ix.  4-5),  God's  own  (tSiov)  Son  (Rom.  viii, 
32),  who,  being  in  the  form  of  God,  thought  it  not  robbery 
to  be  equal  with  God  (Phil.  ii.  6) ;  he  ascribes  to  him 
divine  attributes :  eternity  (Heb.  xiii.  8),  unchangeable- 
ness  (Heb.  i.  10-12),  almightiness  (Heb.  i.  3 ;  Phil.  iii. 
21),  and  says:  For  by  him  were  all  things  created,  that 
are  in  heaven,  and  that  are  in  earth,  visible  and  invisible, 
whether  they  be  thrones,  or  dominions,  or  principalities,  or 
powers  :  all  things  were  created  by  him,  and  for  him  :  and 
he  is  before  all  things,  and  by  him  all  things  consist 
(Col.  i.  16,  17). 

In  these  Epistles  Christ  is  in  three  places  called  God 
(Rom.  ix.  4-5  ;  Tit.  ii.  11-13 ;  1  Tim.  iii.  16).  I  examine 
the  texts,  and  I  discover  that  all  three  indications  by  St. 
Paul  that  Christ  is  God  are  based  on  the  addition  of  words 
to  the  old  texts,  and  on  the  incorrectness  of  the  translations 
and  the  punctuation.  The  passage  in  Timothy  is  read  in 
various  ways.  In  the  oldest  texts  the  word  "  God  "  does 
not  occur  at  all,  but  instead  of  it  there  is  a  relative 
pronoun,  now  of  the  masculine,  and  now  of  the  neuter 
gender.  In  any  case  this  whole  verse  refers  to  Christ, 
and  not  to  God,  and  the  substitution  in  later  texts  of  the 
word  "  God  "  for  the  pronoun  cannot  serve  as  a  proof  of 
the  divinity  of  Christ.  Then  follows  the  passage  Tit.  ii. 
11-13.  The  verse  stands  as  follows:  "Looking  for  that 
blessed  hope,  and  the  glorious  appearing  of  the  great  God 
and  our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ."  The  conjunction  "  and  "  is 
taken  by  the  Theology  to  be  the  same  as  a  colon  and  an 
equality,  and,  instead  of  understanding  the  passage,  as 
many  similar  passages  are  understood,  as  speaking  of  the 
glory  of  God  and  of  Jesus  Christ,  these  words  are  taken 
as  a  proof  of  the  divinity  of  Christ,  Finally,  the  last 
passage  is  Rom.  ix.  5.  This  passage  is  re.ad  in  such  a 
way  that  Christ  is  called  a  blessed  God,  only  because  the 
punctuation  mark  which  ought  to  stand  after  "flesh 
Christ  came,"  has  been  changed  from  a  period  to  a  comma. 


266  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    TUEOLOGY 

The  whole  verse  ought  to  read :  "  Whose  (the  Jews')  are 
the  fathers,  and  whose  Christ  is  according  to  the  flesh." 
After  that  there  ought  to  he  a  period.  Then  follows  the 
usual  praise  to  God :  "  Who  is  over  all,  God,  is  blessed 
forever  "  (and  not  "  blessed  for  ever  ").  This  intentional 
error  is  regarded  as  a  proof  of  the  divinity  of  Christ.  In 
the  whole  book  Christ  is  mentioned  as  a  prophet,  and  the 
words  "  Son  of  God  (utos  tov  ®€ov)  are  not  even  used,  but 
instead,  Trats  tov  ©eoi),  that  is,  more  correctly,  servant  of 
God.     Those  are  all  the  proofs. 

It  is  evident  that  those  are  not  proofs,  but  juxtaposi- 
tions of  words  which  may  serve  as  a  confirmation  of  a 
proposition  which  has  no  foundation  whatever  in  the 
Gospels  and  the  Epistles.  For  any  man  who  studies 
Holy  Scripture  in  the  original,  who  is  acquainted  with 
the  criticism  of  Scripture  and  of  the  history  of  the  church, 
it  is  evident  that  in  the  first  century  of  Christianity,  when 
the  Epistles  and  Gospels  were  written,  there  was  not  even 
any  mention  made  of  the  divinity  of  Christ.  The  best 
refutal  of  the  proofs  of  the  church  about  the  Godhead  of 
Christ  is  found  in  the  vain  endeavours  which  it  makes  to 
find  anything  resembling  a  proof.  Everything  which 
might  have  looked  as  an  indication,  every  such  a  phrase, 
every  juxtaposition  of  words,  every  blunder,  every  chance 
for  an  incorrect  reading,  is  taken  as  a  proof,  biit  no  real 
proof  exists  or  can  exist,  because  that  idea  was  foreign  to 
Christ  and  to  his  disciples.  This  is  especially  apparent 
from  the  reading  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  in  the  origi- 
nal. Here  is  described  the  teaching  of  the  apostles,  and 
here  Christ  is  mentioned  many  times,  and  not  only  is  he 
not  spoken  of  as  God,  but  no  special  meaning  above  any 
saint  is  ascribed  to  him ;  he  is  called  saint,  prophet,  mes- 
senger of  God,  and  not  even  rtos,  as  John  and  Paul  call 
him,  but  TTttTs  tov  Oeov,  which  can  in  no  way  be  connected 
with  the  present  teacliing  of  the  church  about  Christ  the 
God.     But  in  order  to  have  clear  and  manifest  proofs  of 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  267 

the  fact  that  the  chief  disseminator  of  the  teaching  of 
Christ,  Paul,  never  even  so  much  as  thought  of  the  divin- 
ity of  Christ,  it  is  necessary  to  read  those  passages  of  his 
Epistles  which  directly  determine  the  relations  of  Christ 
to  God. 

But  to  us  there  is  but  one  God,  the  Father,  of  whom 
are  all  things,  and  we  in  him ;  and  one  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
by  whom  are  all  things,  and  we  by  him  (1  Cor.  viii.  6). 
One  God  and  Father  of  all,  and  in  us  all  (Eph.  iv.  6). 
That  the  God  of  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  so  forth 
(Eph.  i.  17).  The  head  of  Christ  is  God  (1  Cor.  xi.  3). 
Simplest  and  most  indubitable  of  all  it  is  in  1  Tim.  ii.  5  : 
For  there  is  one  God,  and  one  mediator  between  God  and 
man,  the  man  Christ  Jesus. 

Indeed,  there  appears  a  man  who  teaches  men  of  the 
relation  which  ought  to  exist  between  man  and  God,  and 
preaches  this  teaching  to  all  men.  His  relation  and  that 
of  all  men  to  God  he  expresses  by  the  relation  of  the  Son 
to  the  Father.  That  there  might  be  no  misunderstanding, 
he  calls  liimself,  and  men  in  general,  the  son  of  man,  and 
says  that  the  son  of  man  is  the  Son  of  God.  In  explain- 
ing man's  relation  to  God,  he  says  that  as  the  son  ought 
to  emulate  the  father,  and  have  one  aim  and  one  will  with 
him  (in  the  parable  of  the  shepherd),  even  so  must  man 
strive  to  be  like  God  and  to  do  the  same  that  God  is  doing. 
And  he  says  of  himself  that  he  is  the  son  of  God.  Indeed, 
what  else  could  Christ  have  said,  since  he  taught  them  the 
sonhood  to  God  ?  If  he  cannot  help  saying  about  himself 
that  he  is  a  son  of  God,  since  it  is  this  precisely  that  he  is 
teaching  to  all  men,  there  cannot  be  said  of  him,  what 
neither  the  Jews,  nor  he  himself  had  the  least  idea  about, 
that  he  was  God  and  the  second  person  of  the  Trinity ; 
for,  though  he  never  denied  his  filial  relation  to  God,  he 
never  ascribed  any  special  importance  to  it.  He  was  told  : 
"  If  you  are  a  simple  man,  like  all,  eating  and  drinking 
with  the  publicans,  you  have  nothing  to  teach  us  about ; 


268  CKITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

but  if  you  are  a  Son  of  God,  a  Messiah,  show  us  your 
power,  or  be  executed."  He  denied  both.  He  said  :  "  I 
am  not  a  simple  man,  —  I  am  fulfilling  the  will  of  God 
my  Father,  and  teaching  men  about  it ;  but  I  am  also  not 
a  special  son  of  God,  but  only  one  who  is  doing  his 
Father's  will,  and  this  I  teach  to  all  men." 

It  is  with  this  that  he  struggled  all  his  life,  and  this 
they  now  ascribe  to  him,  and  try  to  prove  that  he  said 
what  he  actually  denied  and  what,  if  he  had  said  it, 
would  have  destroyed  the  whole  meaning  of  his  teaching. 
According  to  the  teaching  of  the  church  it  turns  out  that 
God  descended  to  earth  only  in  order  to  save  men.  Their 
salvation  consists  in  believing  that  he  is  God.  It  would 
not  have  been  much  trouble  for  him  to  say  outright,  "  I 
am  God,"  or,  if  not  outright,  at  least  not  by  such  circum- 
locution that  there  is  a  possibility  of  understanding  him 
quite  differently  without  any  desire  to  do  wrong.  Let  it 
even  be  by  circumlocution,  if  only  it  would  be  possible  to 
explain  his  words  as  meaning  that  he  was  God.  Well, 
even  if  his  words  were  not  exact,  at  least  they  should 
not  contradict  the  statement  that  he  was  God.  But,  as  it 
is,  he  has  spoken  in  such  a  way  that  it  is  not  possible  to 
understand  him  otherwise  than  that  he  asserted  to  many 
that  he  was  not  God.  If  he  had  only  revealed  this  secret 
to  his  nearest  disciples  so  that  they  might  have  imparted 
it  to  other  men,  but,  as  it  is,  the  disciples  taught  only  that 
he  was  a  righteous  man,  a  mediator  between  man  and  God, 
and  not  a  God. 

Suddenly  it  turns  out  that  for  our  salvation,  which 
comes  from  him,  his  words  have  to  be  comprehended  not 
as  he  and  his  disciples  have  spoken  them,  and  that  we 
must  not  rely  on  our  common  sense,  but  must  believe  the 
church,  which,  basing  itself  on  tricks  and  misinterpreta- 
tions of  certain  verses,  asserts  the  opposite  of  what  he  has 
said  about  himself,  and  what  his  disciples  have  said  of 
him.     I  have  not  dwelt  on  this  passage  in  order  to  prove 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  269 

that  Christ  is  not  God,  —  it  is  useless  to  prove  that,  —  for 
to  him  who  believes  in  God,  Christ  cannot  be  God.  That 
was  already  evident  in  the  exposition  of  the  dogma  of  the 
Trinity  and  of  the  whole  consequent  inevitable  tangle,  but 
1  have  dwelt  on  this  part  as  on  one  in  which  lies  the 
source  of  all  the  preceding  monstrosities  and  absurdities. 
It  is  evident  to  me  that  after  Christ's  death,  his  disciples, 
who  were  profoundly  effected  by  his  teaching,  in  speaking 
and  writing  of  him,  of  the  man  who  taught  that  all  men 
were  the  sons  of  God  and  must  blend  with  God  in  life, 
and  who  in  his  life  up  to  his  death  carried  out  this  sub- 
jection of  himself  to  the  will  of  God  and  this  union  with 
him,  —  it  is  evident  to  me  that  his  disciples  called  him 
divine  and  the  beloved  Son  of  God  on  account  of  the  ele- 
vation of  his  teaching  and  of  his  life,  which  fully  realized 
his  teaching  ;  and  it  is  exphcable  to  me  how  ignorant  peo- 
ple, listening  to  the  teaching  of  the  apostles,  did  not 
understand  it,  but  instead  understood  the  mere  words  and 
on  these  ignorantly  conceived  words  built  up  their  own 
teaching  and,  with  the  stubbornness  which  generally  goes 
with  ignorance,  stuck  to  their  comprehension,  denying 
every  other  interpretation,  even  because  they  were  unable 
to  understand  it,  and  how  later  such  ignorant  people  con- 
firmed this  terrible  error  at  the  first  and  the  second 
QLcumenical  Councils. 

In  the  dogma  of  the  original  sin  I  can  admit  the  com- 
prehension of  those  people  who  in  the  story  of  the  fall  of 
man  can  see  nothing  but  that  there  was  an  Adam  and 
that  he  did  not  keep  God's  command  not  to  eat  of  the 
forbidden  fruit.  This  comprehension  is  not  wrong,  it  is 
crude.  Even  thus  I  can  admit  the  comprehension  of  men 
who  say  that  Jesus  was  God  and  by  his  death  and  suffer- 
ings saved  men.  This  comprehension  is  not  wrong,  it  is 
only  crude  and  imperfect.  The  conception  of  man's  fall 
as  due  to  the  fact  that  he  did  not  obey  God  is  correct  in 
so  far  as  it  expresses  the   idea  that  man's    dependence, 


270  CEITIQUE   OF   DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY 

weakness,  death,  —  all  those  are  the  consequences  of  his 
carnal  passions.  Just  as  correct  is  the  statement  that 
Christ  was  God  in  so  far  —  as  was  actually  the  fact  and 
as  John  says  —  as  he  made  God  manifest  to  us.  But  the 
moment  men  begin  to  assert  that  the  form  in  which  this 
thought  is  expressed  is  the  only  truth,  I  no  longer  can 
admit  what  they  say,  because  their  elucidations  and  asser- 
tions explain  the  meaning  of  the  idea  which  they  enunci- 
ate, and  this  idea  excludes  the  possibility  of  all  oneness  of 
faith  and  clearly  shows  that  the  source  of  their  stubborn- 
ness in  their  assertions  is  crudity  and  ignorance.  It  is 
precisely  this  that  the  church  has  been  doing  all  the 
time  in  the  name  of  its  sanctity  and  infallibihty. 

After  this  follows  Art.  134.  The  Lord  Jesus  has  a 
human  nature  and  is  indeed  the  son  of  the  Virgin  Mary. 
Then  Art.  135  proves  that  Christ  was  born  in  human 
form  from  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  that  Mary,  having  given 
birth  to  him,  remained  a  virgin.  There  are  quoted  proofs 
for  what  cannot  be  comprehended,  and  explanations  of 
the  fathers  of  the  church. 

"  Not  only  did  they  teach  so,  but  they  frequently  tried 
to  disclose  that  such  a  miraculous  manner  of  the  Mes- 
siah's birth  was  possible  and  exceedingly  proper :  in  proof, 
or  as  an  explanation  of  the  possibility,  they  pointed  to 
the  almightiuess  of  God  and  to  certain  other  miraculous 
cases  of  the  kind,  as,  for  example,  to  the  burning  bush 
which  did  not  burn  up,  and  to  the  fact  that  the  Saviour, 
after  his  resurrection,  entered  through  closed  doors  into 
the  room  where  his  disciples  were."     (p.  70.) 

136.  The  Lord  Jesus  is  a  sinless  man.  "  (1)  The 
Word  of  God  teaches  us,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  Lord 
does  not  partake  of  the  original  sin."     (p.  75.) 

"  (2)  In  the  second  place,  the  Word  of  God  teaches  us 
that  our  Lord  Jesus  is  quite  free  from  any  personal  sin. 

"  (3)  In  pursuance  of  so  clear  a  teaching  of  the  Word 
of  God,  the  church  has  invariably  believed  that  our  Lord 


CKITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  271 

Jesus,  consiibstantial  with  us  according  to  his  manhood, 
is  like  us  in  all  but  sin.  This  sinlessness  of  Christ  the 
Saviour  the  church  has  since  antiquity  understood  not 
merely  in  the  sense  that  he  is  free  from  the  original  and 
all  voluntary  sin,  but  also  in  the  sense  that  he  cannot 
even  sin  and  that  he  is  free  from  all  sensuous  desires 
or  propensities  to  sin,  free  from  all  inv^ard  temptation. 
Therefore,  when  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia  took  the  liberty 
to  assert,  among  other  things,  that  our  Lord  Jesus  was 
not  exempt  from  inward  temptations  and  the  struggle  of 
the  passions,  the  fifth  Ecumenical  Council  (in  the  year 
553)  condemned  this  heresy  as  one  of  the  most  important 
ones."     (pp.  77  and  78.) 

II.  On  the  unity  of  the  hypostasis  in  Jesus  Christ. 

137.  The  actuality  of  the  union  in  Christ  of  two  natures 
in  one  hypostasis.  "  In  professing  two  natures,  a  di\dne 
and  a  human,  in  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,  we  at  the  same 
time  profess  that  there  is  in  him  but  one  person  and  that 
the  two  natures  are  in  him  combined  into  one  hypostasis 
of  God  the  Word,  for  we  believe  that  the  Son  of  God 
assumed  in  his  own  hypostasis  the  human  flesh  which  was 
conceived  in  the  womb  of  the  Virgin  Mary  from  the  Holy 
Ghost  and  became  incarnate  (Epistle  of  the  Eastern  Pa- 
triarchs on  the  Orthodox  Faith,  section  7),  and  that,  con- 
sequently, his  humanity  has  in  him  no  especial  personality 
and  does  not  form  a  separate  hypostasis,  but  was  accepted 
by  his  divinity  into  a  union  with  his  divine  hypostasis. 
Or,  let  us  say  with  the  words  of  St.  John  Damascene, '  The 
hypostasis  of  God  the  Word  became  incarnate,  having 
received  from  the  Virgin  the  beginning  of  our  composition, 
the  flesh  animated  by  a  reasoning  and  rational  soul,  so 
that  it  itself  became  a  hypostasis  of  flesh.  .  .  .  One  and 
the  same  hypostasis  of  the  Word,  having  become  a  hypos- 
tasis of  two  essences,  does  not  permit  any  one  of  them 
to  be  anhypostatic,  nor  does  it  permit  them  to  be  variously 
hypostatic  among   themselves ;  nor  is   it  the  hypostasis 


272  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

now  of  one  essence,  and  now  of  another,  but  always 
remains  a  hypostasis  of  both  hypotases  indivisibly  and  in- 
separably. .  .  .  The  flesh  of  God  the  Word  did  not  assume 
an  independent  hypostasis  and  did  not  become  a  hyposta- 
sis, different  from  the  hypostasis  of  God  the  Word,  but 
having  in  it  received  a  hypostasis,  was  rather  received 
into  the  hypostasis  of  God  the  Word  than  became  an 
independent  hypostasis.'  "     (p.  79.) 

It  is  absolutely  impossible  to  render  this  into  one's  own 
words :  it  is  simply  the  delirium  of  an  insane  man.  The 
Trinity  in  one  person  breaks  up  into  two,  and  these  two 
are  again  one. 

"  III.  Holy  Scripture  presents  the  firmest  foundations 
of  this  truth.  It  teaches:  (1)  that  in  Christ  Jesus,  with 
two  essences,  a  divine  and  a  human,  there  is  one  hypos- 
tasis, one  person,  and  (2)  that  this  hypostasis  of  the 
Word  or  of  the  Son  of  God,  having  accepted  and  united 
with  itself  the  human  hypostasis  with  the  divine,  abides 
inseparably  as  one  hypostasis  of  either  essence."  (pp.  79 
and  80.) 

All  that  is  confirmed  by  Holy  Scripture,  the  fathers  of 
the  church,  and  the  decrees  of  the  councils. 

Finally  common  sense,  too,  is  invoked  : 

"IV.  And  common  sense,  on  the  basis  of  theological 
principles,  cannot  help  but  notice  that  the  Nestorian 
heresy,  which  divided  Jesus  Christ  into  two  persons,  abso- 
lutely rejects  the  mystery  of  the  incarnation  and  the 
mystery  of  the  redemption.  If  the  divinity  and  the  hu- 
manity in  Christ  are  not  united  into  one  hypostasis,  but 
form  two  separate  persons,  if  the  Son  of  God  was  united 
with  Christ  the  man  only  morally,  and  not  physically, 
and  lived  in  him,  as  formerly  in  Moses  and  the  prophets, 
—  then  there  was  no  incarnation  at  all,  and  it  is  impos- 
sible to  say :  The  Word  was  flesh,  or,  God  sent  his  Son,  » 
born  of  a  woman  ;  for  it  would  turn  out  that  the  Son  of 
God  was  not  born  of  a  woman  and  did  not  take  upon 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGxMATIC    THEOXiOGY  273 

himself  the  human  flesh,  but  only  coexternally  became 
consubstantial  with  Christ  who  was  born  of  a  woman. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  for  us  suffered  and  died  on  the  cross 
not  the  Son  of  God,  with  his  flesh  taken  up  by  him  into 
a  union  with  his  hypostasis,  but  a  simple  man,  Christ, 
who  had  only  a  moral  union  with  the  Son  of  God,  —  then 
there  could  not  have  taken  place  our  redemption,  because 
man,  no  matter  how  holy  he  may  be,  on  account  of  his 
hmitatious,  is  not  able  to  bring  sufticient  satisfaction  to 
the  infinite  justice  of  God  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  human 
race.  And,  by  tearing  down  the  mystery  of  the  incarna- 
tion and  the  mystery  of  the  redemption,  the  Nestorian 
heresy  tore  down  the  whole  structure  of  the  Christian 
faith."     (pp.  85  and  86.) 

Thus  it  turns  out  that  what  cannot  be  comprehended 
or  even  expressed,  what  cannot  be  thought  of  otherwise 
than  by  learning  it  by  heart  and  repeating  these  words,  is 
precisely  what  the  whole  structure  of  the  Christian  faith 
is  reared  on.  In  connection  with  the  disclosure  of  this 
dogma  one  involuntarily  comes  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  dogma  of  the  Trinity  and  those  of  the  redemption,  of 
grace,  of  incarnation,  —  that  the  more  monstrous  and 
senseless  they  are,  the  more  important  they  turn  out  to 
be  in  the  opinion  of  the  church  and  the  more  controversies 
there  have  been  in  regard  to  them. 

Have  there  been  so  many  controversies  because  the 
dogma  is  monstrous,  or  has  the  dogma  turned  out  to  be 
so  monstrous  because  it  is  the  outgrowth  of  controversy 
and  malice  ?  I  think  both  have  happened.  A  dogma 
which  by  its  nature  is  monstrous  causes  controversy,  and 
the  controversy  makes  the  dogma  still  more  monstrous. 
Another  remarkable  thing  is  that  the  more  important  a 
dogma  is  regarded  to  be  by  the  church,  the  more  contro- 
versies and  malice  and  executions  there  have  been,  and 
the  less  meaning  or  possibility  of  moral  application  it  has. 
The  dogmas  of  the  emanation  of  the  Spirit,  of  the  essence 


274  CRITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

of  Christ,  of  the  sacrament  of  communion,  have  agitated 
the  church  in  proportion  as  they  were  removed  from  any 
possibility  of  a  moral  application.     After  that  follows : 

138.  The  manner  of  the  hypostatic  union  in  Christ  of 
the  two  natures.  "  In  what  manner  the  two  essences  in 
Jesus  Christ,  the  divine  and  the  human,  in  spite  of  their 
difference,  were  united  into  one  hypostasis  ;  how  he,  being 
perfect  God  and  perfect  man,  is  only  one  person,  —  all 
that,  according  to  the  Word  of  God,  is  a  great  mystery 
of  godliness  (1  Tim.  iii.  16),  and,  consequently,  inacces- 
sible to  our  reason.  But  in  so  far  as  this  mystery  is 
accessible  for  our  faith,  the  holy  church  teaches  us,  on 
the  basis  of  the  same  Word  of  God,  that  the  two  essences 
have  united  in  our  Saviour,  (1)  on  the  one  hand,  without 
blending  (do-vyxvVo)?)  and  unchangeably,  or  immovably 
(aTpeTTTws),  in  spite  of  the  heresy  of  the  Monophysites, 
who  blended  the  two  essences  in  Christ,  or  who  assumed 
in  him  the  transformation  of  the  divinity  into  flesh ;  (2) 
on  the  other  hand,  inseparably  (dxw/Dtb-Tws),  in  spite  of  the 
error  of  the  Nestorians,  who  separated  the  essences  in 
Christ,  and  of  other  heretics,  who  denied  that  they  had 
been  united  constantly  and  uninterruptedly ;  cf.  the 
Dogma  of  the  Council  of  Chalcedon."     (p.  86.) 

This  is  proved  besides  from  Scripture : 

"  (3)  Finally,  also  from  considerations  of  common  sense, 
which,  on  the  basis  of  its  natural  principles,  cannot  in 
any  way  admit :  (a)  that  the  divine  and  human  essences 
should  have  blended  or  mingled  in  Christ  and  formed  a 
new,  third  essence,  having  lost  their  attributes,  for  the 
Godhead  is  unchangeable,  and  the  blending  or  mingling 
of  two  quite  simple  essences,  of  the  human  soul  and  of 
the  divinity,  is  impossible,  and  so  much  the  more  physic- 
ally impossible  is  the  blending  of  the  coarse  human  flesh 
with  the  simplest  divinity ;  (h)  nor  that  the  divine  es- 
sence should  have  changed  into  a  human,  or  the  human 
iato  a  diyiiie  essence:   the  first  i§  contrary  to  the  uu- 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  275 

changeableness  and  unlimitedness  of  God,  the  latter  is 
contrary  to  the  hmitedness  of  man.  On  the  basis  of  the 
principles  of  the  revealed,  or  Christian,  theology,  reason 
must  tell  us  that  only  in  the  unblended  and  untransferred 
union  of  the  two  essences  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  only  with 
their  perfect  integrity,  could  have  taken  place  the  great 
work  of  our  redemption,  for  the  Saviour  could  have  suf- 
fered on  the  cross  only  with  his  humanity,  and  only  liis 
divinity  could  give  an  infinite  value  to  liis  sufferings. 
Consequently,  to  acknowledge  in  Christ  the  blending  or 
transmutation  of  the  two  essences  into  one,  means  to 
overthrow  the  mystery  of  our  redemption."  (pp.  89  and 
90.) 

139.  The  consequences  of  the  hypostatic  union  of  the 
two  essences  in  Jesus  Christ,  (a)  in  relation  to  himself. 
"  The  consequences  of  the  first  kind  are :  I.  The  commun- 
ion in  Jesus  Christ  of  the  two  attributes  of  his  essences. 
It  consists  in  this,  that  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ  each 
of  his  essences  transfers  its  attributes  to  the  other,  namely, 
what  is  proper  to  him  according  to  his  humanity  is  ap- 
propriated to  him  as  to  God,  and  what  is  proper  to  him 
according  to  his  divinity  is  appropriated  to  him  as  to 
man.  II.  The  deification  of  the  human  essence  in 
Jesus  Christ.  The  deification  is  not  in  the  sense  that 
the  human  in  Christ  is  changed  into  divinity,  has  lost  its 
limitedness,  and  has  received,  in  the  place  of  the  human 
attributes,  other  attributes  of  God ;  but  that,  having  been 
received  by  the  Son  of  God  into  a  union  with  his  hy- 
postasis, it  has  been  communicated  to  his  divinity,  has 
become  one  with  God  the  Word,  and  through  incorpora- 
tion with  the  divinity  has  been  heightened  in  its  per- 
fections to  the  highest  degree  to  which  humanity  can 
rise,  at  the  same  time  not  ceasing  to  be  humanity." 
(p.  95.) 

"  III.  To  Jesus  Christ,  as  to  the  one  person,  to  the 
God-man,  it  behoves  us  to  give  one,  undivided  divine 


27 G  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

worship,  both  according  to  his  Godhead  and  according  to 
his  humanity." 

"IV.  In  Jesus  Christ  there  are  two  wills  and  two 
actions."  There  follow  long  controversies  about  the 
two  wills  and  the  two  actions.  Eefutals  and  proofs  from 
Scripture  and  from  common  sense.  The  mental  morbidity 
has  so  increased  in  this  chapter  that  it  is  painful  to  read 
it,  if  you  read  with  the  desire  to  understand  what  the 
author  is  talking  about.  Then,  in  accordance  with 
the  subdivision  made  in  the  beginning  of  the  chapter, 
where  it  said  that  the  consequences  of  the  hypostatic 
union  of  Jesus  Christ  are  of  two  kinds,  in  relation :  (a) 
to  himself,  (b)  to  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  (c)  to  the  Most 
Holy  Trinity. 

140.  (b)  In  relation  to  the  Most  Holy  Virgin,  the 
Mother  of  our  Lord  Jesus.  The  consequences  of  the  hy- 
postatic union  in  relation  to  the  Virgin  Mary  are  ana- 
lyzed. Contents  :  a  polemic  with  the  Macedonians  and 
the  Nestoriaus.  The  subdivision  about  the  consequences 
in  relation  to  Christ  and  to  the  Virgin  Mary  is  made  only 
in  order  to  dispute  against  Nestorius,  who  called  the 
Virgin  Mary  the  Mother  of  Christ. 

141.  (c)  In  relation  to  the  Most  Holy  Trinity.  It 
is  proved  that,  in  spite  of  the  incarnation,  the  Trin- 
ity remained  a  Trinity.  This  is  the  way  it  is  to  be 
understood  : 

"  The  words  of  St.  John  Damascene  :  '  I  do  not  intro- 
duce a  fourth  person  into  the  Trinity,  which  it  shall  not 
be ;  but  I  profess  the  one  person  of  God  the  Word  and  of 
his  flesh.  The  Trinity  remained  the  Trinity  even  after 
the  incarnation  of  the  Word.  The  flesh  of  God  the  Word 
did  not  receive  an  independent  hypostasis,  and  did  not 
become  a  hypostasis  different  from  the  hypostasis  of  God 
the  Word ;  but  in  it,  having  received  the  hypostasis,  it 
became  rather  received  into  the  hypostasis  of  God  the 
Word  than  an  independent  hypostasis.     For  this  reason  it 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  277 

does    not    remain    anhypostatic    and    introduce    another 
hypostasis  into  the  Trinity.'  "     (p,  114.) 

142.  Moral  application  of  the  dogma  about  the  mystery 
of  the  incarnation.  All  these  dogmas  give  us  the  follow- 
ing lessons:  (1)  all  these  blasphemous  controversies,  in 
the  opinion  of  the  author,  "  coutirm  the  faith  in  us ; "  (2) 
faith  reminds  us  of  hope ;  (8)  kindles  in  us  the  love  for 
God ;  (4)  teaches  us  to  glorify  not  only  God,  but  also 
"  to  glorify  with  all  the  strength  of  our  being  the  Most 
Holy,  Most  Blessed,  Glorious  Lady,  our  Mother  of  God 
and  Ever  Virgin  Mary  ; "  (5)  "  to  respect  in  ourselves  the 
dignity  of  man,"  because  Christ  was  God  and  man  ;  (6) 
"  finally,  presents  to  us  in  the  incarnated  Son  of  God  a 
most  perfect  example  for  emulation,  in  accordance  with 
his  own  words :  '  For  I  have  given  you  an  example,  that 
ye  should  do  as  I  have  done  to  you'  (John  xiii.  15)." 
(p.  115.) 


I 


XII. 

The  following  place,  "  Section  2,"  as  it  is  called  in  the 
Theology,  is  especially  important,  although  in  the  middle 
of  the  exposition  it  is  called  only  the  2d  Section  from 
Chapter  II.,  Part  2 :  About  God  the  Saviour  in  his 
especial  relation  to  the  human  race. 

In  general,  the  division  of  the  Theology  into  parts, 
divisions,  chapters,  sections,  articles,  into  (1),  (2),  (3), 
(a),  (h),  (c),  and  so  forth,  is  to  such  a  degree  complicated 
and  arbitraiy  and  based  on  nothing  that  there  is  abso- 
lutely no  possibility  of  remembering  all  the  subdivisions, 
and  it  is  necessary  to  consult  the  book  every  minute  or 
learn  everything  by  heart.  This  place  is  especially  im- 
portant because  here,  in  this  very  spot,  we  find  the  key 
to  all  contradictions.  Here  is  to  be  found  the  radical, 
internal  contradiction  from  which  resulted  the  tangle  of 
aU  the  other  parts.  Here,  in  this  place,  is  made  the  sub- 
stitution of  its  own  teaching  in  place  of  the  teaching  of 
Christ,  and  it  is  done  in  such  a  way  that  it  is  not  possible 
at  a  first  glance  to  discern  this  substitution,  and  that  it 
appears  as  though  to  the  teaching  of  Christ,  which  is  clear 
and  manifest  to  aU,  there  were  only  attached  certaia 
revealed  truths,  which,  far  from  impairing  the  teaching  of 
Christ,  only  enhance  the  greatness  of  Christ  and  of  his 
teaching. 

The  contradiction,  which  is  here  imperceptibly  carried 
into  the  teaching,  and  which  later  will  form  the  subject 
of  elucidation  in  the  division  on  grace,  consists  in  this, 
that  Christ  the  God  saved  men  by  descending  upon  earth 

278 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  279 

to  them  who  had  entirely  fallen ;  at  the  same  time  he 
gave  them  a  law  which,  when  adhered  to,  will  save  them. 
The  contradiction  consists  in  this,  that,  if  men  were  en- 
tirely lost  and  God  had  pity  on  them  and  sent  to  them  his 
Son  (who  is  also  God)  to  suffer  and  die  for  men  and  take 
them  out  of  the  condition  in  which  they  had  been  before  the 
redemption,  that  condition  ought  to  have  changed ;  but  at 
the  same  time  we  hear  the  assertion  that  God  also  gave  a 
law  to  men  (a  law  of  faith  and  works),  which  if  they  do 
not  follow,  they  perish  just  as  much  as  they  perished 
before  the  redemption.  Thus  it  turns  out  that  if  obedi- 
ence to  the  law  is  a  condition  of  salvation,  the  salvation 
of  men  by  the  death  of  Christ  is  superfluous  and  quite 
useless.  But,  if  the  salvation  by  Christ's  death  is  real, 
obedience  to  the  law  is  useless  and  the  law  itself  is  super- 
fluous. It  is  necessary  to  choose  one  or  the  other,  and 
the  church  teaching  in  reality  chooses  the  latter,  that  is, 
it  acknowledges  the  reality  of  the  redemption,  but,  in 
acknowledging  it,  does  not  dare  make  the  last  necessary 
deduction  that  the  law  is  superfluous ;  it  does  not  dare 
do  so  because  this  law  is  precious  and  important  to 
every  man,  and  so  it  acknowledges  the  law  only  in  words 
(and  that,  too,  in  a  very  indefinite  manner)  and  carries  on 
all  the  discussion  in  such  a  way  as  to  prove  the  reality  of 
the  redemption  and  therefore  the  uselessness  of  the  law. 
Christ's  law  is  in  this  exposition  something  quite  super- 
fluous, something  which  does  not  result  from  the  essence 
of  the  whole  matter,  something  which  is  not  connected 
with  the  whole  progress  of  the  discussion,  and  so  falls  off 
by  itself.  That  is  apparent  even  from  the  manner  of  the 
expression  in  the  heading :  About  the  act  of  salvation 
performed  by  the  Lord,  or  about  the  mystery  of  the 
redemption,  and  from  the  division  of  the  chapter,  in 
which  the  moral  teaching  occupies  only  a  small  half  of 
the  three  species  of  salvation,  and  from  the  number 
of  the  pages  which  are  devoted  to  this  subject; 


280  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

Section  2.  About  the  act  of  salvation  performed  by  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  or  about  the  mystery  of  the  redemption. 

143.  How  did  our  Lord  Jesus  achieve  our  salvation  ? 
He  achieved  our  salvation  as  Christ.  Christ  means  the 
Anointed.  The  anointed  were  the  prophets,  the  high 
priests,  and  the  kings.  From  this  the  Theology  concludes 
that  Christ  was  a  prophet,  a  high  priest,  and  a  king. 
And  on  this  foundation  the  salvation  through  Christ  and 
his  ministration  to  men  are  divided  into  three  parts,  into 
the  prophetic,  the  sacerdotal,  and  the  regal ;  why  do  they 
make  such  a  division,  which,  to  say  the  least,  is  queer? 
Why  is  Christ  called  by  the  improper  name  of  king, 
which  not  only  God  Christ,  but  any  moral  man,  would 
not  wish  to  accept  ?  To  this  there  is  no  other  answer 
except  that  so  it  was  written  in  former  Catechisms. 
First  comes :  I.  About  the  prophetic  ministration  of  Jesus 
Christ. 

144.  Conception  of  the  prophectic  ministration  of  Jesus 
Christ  and  the  truth  of  his  ministration.  It  is  proved  by 
Holy  Scripture  that  Christ  was  a  prophet. 

145.  The  way  in  which  the  Lord  Jesus  achieved  his 
prophetic  ministration,  and  the  essence  of  his  sermon. 
The  prophetic  ministration,  according  to  the  Theology, 
consists  of  two  parts :  of  the  law  of  faith,  and  of  activity. 
For  the  salvation  of  men  Christ  gives  the  law  of  faith  and 
of  activity.  The  law  of  faith  consists  in  the  belief  in  God 
the  Trinity,  in  the  fall  of  Adam,  in  the  incarnation,  and 
in  the  redemption.  The  law  of  activity  consists  in  self- 
renunciation  and  loving  God  and  your  neighbour. 

146.  This  article  speaks  of  Jesus  Christ  having  taught 
a  new,  more  perfect  law  in  place  of  the  law  of  Moses. 
Here  is  expounded  the  difference  between  the  law  of 
Christ  and  the  law  of  Moses,  again  mainly  in  relation  to 
faith.  In  relation  to  the  activity  there  is  but  half  a  page, 
in  which  we  are  informed  that  the  demands  of  the  Gospel 
law  are  higher  than  the  law  of  Moses,  but  nothing  is  said 


CKITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  281 

as  to  the  extent  to  which  the  execution  of  these  demands 
is  obhgatory  for  salvation,  or  what  they  consist  in.  But, 
in  considering  the  demands  as  put  forth  here,  and  their 
execution  in  reahty,  it  is  evident  that  the  hiw  of  evangel- 
ical activity  is  not  recoguized  as  obligatory  for  salvation. 
We  are  told  that  by  the  law  of  Christ  are  demanded  the 
endurance  and  forgiveness  of  offences,  the  love  of  our 
enemies,  self-renunciation,  humility,  chastity,  not  only 
physical,  but  also  spiritual ;  it  is  evident  that  if  those  are 
all  the  demands  of  Christ's  law  of  activity  for  salvation, 
not  only  will  the  human  race  not  be  saved,  but  there  has 
not  been,  and  never  will  be,  saved  one  in  a  million.  It  is 
evident  that  that  is  said  only  in  order  not  to  overlook  the 
moral  teaching  of  Christ,  and  that  this  teaching  has  no 
place  and  is  not  wanted  in  the  Theology. 

147.  Jesus  Christ  taught  the  law  to  all  the  people  and 
for  all  times.  That  the  law  was  given  for  all  men 
and  for  all  times  is  proved  by  texts  from  Scripture,  that 
is,  not  by  indicating  that  there  can  be  no  other  law,  but 
by  confirming  from  Scripture  that  this  law  is  for  all 
men  and  for  all  times,  meaning  by  this  law  only  the  law 
of  faith. 

148.  Jesus  Christ  taught  the  only  saving  law  which, 
therefore,  is  necessary  for  the  attainment  of  eternal  life. 
In  this  article  the  proof  is  given  that  this  law  gives  eter- 
nal hfe,  and  that  is  again  not  proved  by  an  elucidation  of 
the  meaning  of  the  moral  law,  but  by  the  assertion  that  it 
is  confirmed  by  Scripture  and  by  the  holy  fathers,  and 
again  the  law  of  faith  alone  is  meant.  That  is  the  end  of 
the  teaching  about  the  prophetic  ministration  of  Jesus 
Christ.  Then  follows  what  is  most  essential  to  the 
church :  II.  About  the  sacerdotal  ministration  of  Jesus 
Christ,  that  is,  about  the  redemption. 

149.  The  connection  with  the  preceding ;  conception  of 
the  sacerdotal  ministration  of  Jesus  Christ ;  truth  and 
superiority  of  this  ministration.      Here  it  says : 


282  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

"  As  a  prophet,  Christ  the  Saviour  only  announced  to  us 
the  salvation,  but  did  not  then  achieve  the  salvation  itself : 
he  enlightened  our  intellect  with  the  light  of  true  divine 
knowledge  and  bore  witness  that  he  was  the  real  Messiah 
who  was  come  to  save  that  which  was  lost  (Matt,  xviii.  11); 
he  also  explained  how  he  was  going  to  save  us,  and  how 
we  could  make  his  deserts  our  own,  and  pointed  out  to  us 
the  straight  road  to  the  eternal  life.  But  with  his  work 
he  saved  us  from  sin  and  from  all  the  consequences  of 
sin,  —  with  his  work  itself  he  earned  the  eternal  hfe  for 
us  through  his  sacerdotal  ministration."     (p.  133.) 

"  But  with  his  work  itself  he  saved  us  from  sin." 
There  is  here  expressed  what  constitutes  the  whole  es- 
sence of  the  teaching  about  the  salvation ;  the  sacerdotal 
ministration,  in  which  are  included  the  demands  of  the 
law  of  activity,  was  only  the  "  announcement,"  but  the  sal- 
vation was  in  the  sacrifice,  in  his  death. 

"  This  ministration  of  our  Saviour  consisted  in  this,  that 
he  brought  himself  as  an  expiatory  sacrifice  for  the  sins  of 
the  world  and  thus  reconciled  us  with  God,  freed  us  from 
sin  and  its  consequences,  and  acquired  eternal  benefits  for 
us."     (p.  133.) 

The  salvation  takes  place  from  that  calculation  of  the 
divinity  wdiich  was  achieved  independently  of  us.  Far- 
ther down  is  the  exposition  of  how  it  happens  that  Christ 
is  the  high  priest,  while  the  divinity  brings  the  sacrifice 
and  Christ  is  the  victim : 

"  The  truth  of  the  sacerdotal  ministration  of  our  Sav- 
iour (a)  was  proclaimed  in  the  Old  Testament  by  God 
himself  through  the  mouth  of  the  prophet  Daniel,  speak- 
ing to  the  IMessiah  :  Thou  art  a  priest  for  ever  after  the 
order  of  Melchisedec  (Psalm  ex.  4)  ;  (b)  was  testified  to  by 
Christ  the  Saviour,  in  refening  to  himself  the  prophetic 
Psalm,  in  which  he  is  called  the  priest  for  ever  after  the 
order  of  Melchisedec  (Matt.  xxii.  44;  Mark  xii.  36; 
Luke  XX.  42);  (c)  finally,  it  was  disclosed  in  detail  by  St. 


CRITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  283 

Paul  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  Here  he :  (1)  clearly 
and  on  several  occasions  called  Jesus  Christ  priest,  high 
priest,  sanctifier.  For  example :  So  also  Christ  glorified 
not  himself  to  be  made  an  high  priest ;  but  he  that  said  unto 
him,  Thou  art  my  Son,  to-day  have  I  begotten  thee.  As 
he  saith  also  in  another  place,  Thou  art  a  priest  for  ever 
after  the  order  of  Melchisedec  (Heb.  v.  5,  6) ;  Consider 
the  apostle  and  high  priest  of  our  profession,  Christ 
Jesus  (Heb,  iii.  1);  Seeing  then  that  we  have  a  great 
high  priest,  that  is  passed  into  the  heavens,  Jesus  the  Son 
of  God,  let  us  hold  fast  our  profession  (Heb.  iv.  14-16)  ; 
(2)  it  is  explained  why  he  is  called  the  high  priest  of  Mel- 
chisedec. That  is  due  to  the  fact  (a)  that  Melchisedec 
was  not  only  a  priest  of  the  most  liigh  God,  but  also  the 
King  of  Salem,  —  a  king  of  righteousness  and  peace,  and 
by  this  unusual  combination  of  two  high  ministrations  he 
predicted  the  unusual  high  priest  of  the  king  (Heb.  vii. 
2) ;  (b)  that  Melchisedec  (since  Holy  Scripture  does  not 
mention  his  family,  nor  the  beginning  and  end  of  his  life, 
nor  his  predecessor,  nor  heir)  represents  the  image  of 
Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  who  abideth  a  priest  continually 
(v.  3)  ;  (c)  finally,  that,  having  received  the  tenth  of  the 
spoils  from  Abraham  himself,  he  blessed  all  who  were  yet 
in  his  loins,  the  sons  of  Levi,  the  priests  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, and  from  them  received  a  tithe,  —  and  since  with- 
out any  contradiction  the  lesser  is  blessed  by  the  greater, 
he  represented  in  himself  the  priesthood  of  Christ,  which 
was  more  perfect  than  the  Levitical  priesthood  of  the  Old 
Testament  (v.  4-11)."     (p.  134.) 

Do  you  understand  it  ?  In  this  part  there  is  noticeable 
not  so  much  the  indifference  of  the  writer  as  to  whether 
what  he  says  has  any  sense,  as  an  apparent  desire  to  col- 
lect such  words  as  can  have  no  meaning.  If  any  sense 
can  be  made  out  of  this  chapter  it  is  this,  that  Christ  sac- 
rificed himself  to  God  for  men,  and  that  the  one  who  wrote 
the  Epistle,  in  which  he  wished  to  express  the  idea  that 


284  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

Christ  was  the  Redeemer  of  sins,  chose  an  obscure  com- 
parison with  Melchisedec,  and  that  the  church,  who  ac- 
cepted all  the  Epistles  of  Paul  and  those  that  are  ascribed 
to  him  as  writings  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  has  stuck  to  the 
word  "  high  priest,"  which  explains  nothing  and  gets  things 
mixed  up.  The  sense  is  that  Christ  brought  himself  as  a 
sacrifice  for  men.  To  elucidate  it,  there  are  quoted  the 
words  of  St.  Gregory  the  Divine,  St.  Epiphanius,  and  others. 

"  (h)  St.  Gregory  the  Divine  :  *  He  was  the  victim  and 
also  the  high  priest  ;  a  priest,  but  also  God  ;  he  presented 
his  blood  to  God,  but  purified  the  whole  world ;  he  was 
raised  to  the  cross,  but  nailed  sin  to  the  cross.'  (c)  St. 
Epiphanius  :  '  He  sacrificed  himself  in  order  that,  by  bring- 
ing a  most  perfect  and  living  sacrifice  for  the  whole  world, 
he  might  make  void  the  sacrifices  of  the  Old  Testament ; 
himself  the  victim,  himself  the  sacrifice,  himself  the  sacri- 
ficer,  himself  the  king,  himself  the  high  priest,  himself  the 
sheep,  himself  the  lamb,  who  became  everything  for  our 
sake.'  " 

150.  How  did  our  Lord  Jesus  perform  his  sacerdotal 
ministration  ?  His  sacerdotal  ministration  consisted  in 
this,  that  (1)  men  fell  by  their  pride  and  disobedience. 
He  was  humble  and  obedient,  and  (2)  since  men  had 
become  worthy  of  the  wrath  of  God,  Christ  took  upon 
himself  the  whole  wrath  of  God  (sufiered  and  died),  and 
became  the  curse.  It  is  impossible  to  express  what  is 
meant  by  it,  —  it  is  necessary  to  read  the  article  as  it 
is  written. 

"  Here,  as  the  high  priest,  he  really  sacrificed  himself 
on  the  cross  as  an  expiatory  victim  to  God  for  the  sins  of 
the  world,  and  redeemed  us  with  his  precious  blood  (1 
Peter  i.  19),  so  that  his  incarnation  and  his  whole  life  on 
earth  served  only  as  a  preparation  and,  as  it  were,  a  grad- 
ual ascent  toward  that  great  sacrifice.  Consequently,  in 
the  Word  of  God  and  in  the  teaching  of  the  church  is 
represented  to  us  — 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  285 

"  151.  Especially  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ  as  a  sacri- 
fice of  redeinptiou  for  our  sake."     (p.  139.) 

His  death  is  the  chief  sacrifice  of  redemptiou  for  our 
sake.  God  sacrifices  to  God  and  redeems  an  obligation 
from  the  good  God.  All  these  are  internal  contradictions. 
There  is  a  contradiction  in  every  sentence,  and  these  sen- 
tences are  contradictorily  combined  with  each  other.  I 
repeat  what  I  said  about  the  dogma  of  the  Trinity.  It  is 
not  exactly  that  I  do  not  believe,  —  I  do  not  know  what 
there  is  to  believe.  I  can  believe  or  not  believe  that  to- 
morrow a  city  wdll  appear  in  heaven  or  that  the  grass  will 
grow  as  high  as  the  sun,  but  I  cannot  believe  that  to-mor- 
row will  be  to-day,  or  that  three  will  be  one  and  yet  three, 
or  that  pain  does  not  pain,  or  that  one  God  was  divided 
into  two  and  yet  is  one,  or  that  the  good  God  punishes 
himself  and  redeems  from  himself  his  own  error  of  crea- 
tion. I  simply  see  that  the  one  who  is  talking  does  not 
know  how  to  talk  or  has  nothing  to  say. 

There  is  no  rational  connection.  The  only  external 
connection  is  the  references  to  Scripture.  They  give  at 
least  some  kind  of  an  explanation,  not  of  what  is  being 
talked  about,  but  why  such  terrible  absurdities  may  be 
uttered.  As  in  many  preceding  places,  the  quotations 
from  Scripture  show  that  the  assertion  of  these  absurdities 
does  not  take  place  voluntarily,  but  results,  as  in  the 
history  of  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  from 
a  false,  for  the  most  part,  crude,  comprehension  of  the 
words  of  Scripture. 

Here,  for  example,  in  confirmation  of  the  fact  that  the 
death  of  Christ  the  God  has  redeemed  the  human  race, 
there  are  quoted  the  passages  from  the  Gospel.  From  the 
discourse  with  Nicodemus :  Even  so  must  the  Son  of 
man  be  lifted  up :  that  whosoever  believeth  in  him  should 
not  perish,  but  have  eternal  life  (John  iii.  14,  15). 

It  says  "  The  Son  of  man  must  be  lifted  up."  How 
can  that   mean   the   redemption   of  the  human   race  by 


286  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

God?  He  who  will  read  the  whole  conversation  with 
Nicodemus,  will  see  clearly  that  it  could  not  mean  any- 
thing like  that.  It  means  precisely  what  the  words 
themselves  mean:  the  Son  of  man  (meaning  by  "son" 
himself  as  man,  or  man  in  general)  must  be  hfted  up  like 
the  brazen  serpent  of  Moses.  By  what  manner  of  reason- 
ing can  one  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  means  the 
death  on  the  cross,  or,  more  wonderfully  still,  the" 
redemption  ? 

The  next  passage  adduced  as  a  proof  is  the  one  where 
John  says  :  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  which  taketh  the 
sin  of  the  world  (John  i.  29).    This  passage  runs  in  Greek 

as    follows  :    t'Se,  6   d/xvos    rov    deov    6    atpoiv    ttjv   d/Aaprtav   tov 

Koafxov.  This  cannot  be  translated  otherwise  than :  The 
lamb  which  lifts  off",  takes  away  the  sin.  of  the  world. 
And  this  passage  is  translated  by  "  taketh,"  to  which  the 
new  translations  add  "  upon  himself."  And  this  interpo- 
lation is  regarded  as  a  proof.  The  next  proof  is  this: 
Even  as  the  Son  of  man  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto, 
but  to  minister,  and  to  give  his  hfe  a  ransom  for  many 
(Matt.  XX.  28). 

How  can  this  verse  mean  anything  but  that  the  man, 
he  himself,  or  man  in  general,  must  give  his  life  for  men, 
for  his  brothers  ? 

Farther:  The  good  shepherd  giveth  his  life  for  the 
sheep.  I  am  the  good  shepherd.  I  lay  down  my  hfe  for 
the  sheep  (John  x.  11,  14,  15). 

The  shepherd  gives  his  hfe  for  liis  flock,  just  as  I  am 
doing.  How  does  the  redemption  follow  from  that  ? 
When  they  ask  a  sign  from  him,  similar  to  the  manna, 
he  says :  I  am  the  living  bread  which  came  down  from 
heaven :  if  any  man  eat  of  this  bread,  he  shall  hve  for 
ever :  and  the  bread  that  I  will  give  is  my  flesh,  which  I 
will  give  for  the  life  of  the  world  (Jolm  vi.  51).  Continu- 
ing his  comparison,  he  says  that  he  is  the  only  bread  that 
men  ought  to  eat.     And  this  bread,  that  is,  his  example 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  287 

and  teaching,  he  would  confirm  by  giving  his  flesh  for  the 
life  of  the  world.  How  does  the  redemption  follow  from 
that? 

Farther :  This  is  my  body  which  is  given  for  you  (Luke 
xxii.  19).  And  he  took  the  cup,  saying.  This  is  my  blood 
of  the  New  Testament,  which  is  shed  for  many  for  the 
remission  of  sins  (Matt.  xxvi.  27—28). 

Bidding  his  disciples  farewell,  with  a  cup  of  wine  and 
bread  in  his  hands,  he  says  to  them  that  he  is  supping 
with  tliem  for  the  last  time  and  that  he  will  die  soon. 
"  Think  of  me  at  your  \vine  and  bread  ;  with  your  wine 
think  of  my  blood,  which  will  flow  for  you  that  ye  may 
live  without  sin ;  with  the  bread  think  of  the  body,  which 
I  am  giving  for  you."  Where  is  here  the  redemption  ? 
"  He  will  die,  will  give  his  blood,  will  suffer  for  the 
people,"  are  the  simplest  kind  of  expressions.  The  peas- 
ants always  say  about  martyrs  and  saints,  "  They  pray, 
work,  and  suffer  for  us."  This  expression  means  nothing 
more  than  that  the  saints  intercede  before  God  for  the 
unrighteous  and  the  sinful. 

But  tliat  is  not  enough  :  they  adduce  as  proof  from  the 
Gospel  of  John  the  following  reflection  of  the  author  of 
the  Gospel  on  the  words  of  Caiaphas :  And  this  spake  he 
not  of  himself :  but  being  high  priest  that  year,  he  prophe- 
sied that  -Jesus  should  die  for  that  nation  ;  and  not  for 
that  nation  only,  but  that  also  he  should  gather  together 
in  one  the  children  of  God  that  were  scattered  abroad 
(John  xi.  51,  52). 

It  is  evident  that  there  are  no  indications  in  the 
Gospel,  not  to  speak  of  proofs,  about  the  redemption,  if 
such  words  are  adduced  as  proofs.  Caiaphas  predicts  the 
redemption,  and  immediately  afterward  has  Christ  killed. 
That  is  all  which  is  adduced  from  the  Gospel  in  proof  of 
the  redemption  of  the  human  race  by  Jesus  Christ. 

After  that  follow  proofs  from  Revelation  and  from  the 
writings  of  the  apostles,  that  is,  from  those  books  which 


288  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

the  church  collected  and  corrected  when  it  already  pro- 
fessed the  dogma  of  the  redemption.  But  in  these  books, 
in  the  Epistles  of  the  apostles,  we  do  not  yet  see  the  con- 
firmation of  the  dogma,  but  there  occur  here  and  there 
obscure  expressions,  with  which  all  the  Epistles  are  filled, 
and  which  may  rudely  be  interpreted  in  the  sense  of  Ihe 
dogma,  as  has  been  done  by  the  consequent  so-called 
fathers  of  the  church,  but  not  by  those  of  the  first  centu- 
ries. It  is  enough  to  read  the  history  of  the  church  to  be 
convinced  that  the  first  Christians  did  not  have  the 
slightest  conception  about  this  dogma.  Thus,  for  ex- 
ample : 

"  The  Apostle  Peter  commands  the  Christians :  Pass 
the  time  of  your  sojourning  here  in  fear :  Forasmuch  as 
ye  know  that  ye  were  not  redeemed  with  corruptible 
things,  as  silver  and  gold,  from  your  vain  conversation 
received  by  tradition  from  your  fathers :  But  with  the 
precious  blood  of  Christ,  as  of  a  lamb  without  blemish 
and  without  spot"  (1  Peter  i.  17-19). 

Peter  says  that  it  is  possible  to  mend  only  through 
faith  in  the  teaching  which  was  branded  by  the  death  of 
him  who  was  as  innocent  as  a  lamb.  And  this  is  taken 
as  a  confirmation  of  the  dogma  of  the  redemption. 

"  Because  Christ  also  suffered  for  us,  leavmg  us  an 
example,  that  we  should  follow  his  steps  —  who  his  own 
self  bare  our  sins  in  his  own  body  on  the  tree,  that  we, 
being  dead  to  sins,  should  live  unto  righteousness :  by 
whose  stripes  ye  were  healed  (1  Peter  ii.  21,  24).  For 
Christ  also  hath  once  suffered  for  sins,  the  just  for  the 
unjust,  that  he  might  bring  us  to  God"  (1.  Peter  iii.  18). 

The  cruel  death  of  Christ,  who  left  us  an  example  of 
life  to  follow  him  by,  ought  to  make  us  heal  ourselves 
from  sins  and  come  to  God.  The  expression  is  concise 
and  metaphorical,  just  as  the  masses  speak  when  they 
say  that  the  martyrs  have  worked  for  us.  And  that  is 
taken  as  a  proof :  "  For  I  delivered  unto  you  first  of  all 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  289 

that  which  I  also  received,  how  that  Christ  died  for  our 
sins  according  to  the  Scriptures"  (1  Cor.  xv.  3).  "For" 
means  in  consequence  of  our  sins.  "  Christ  also  hath 
loved  us,  and  hath  given  himself  for  us  an  offering  and 
sacrifice  to  God  for  a  sweet-smelling  savour  "  (Eph.  v.  2). 
Christ's  love  for  us  brought  him  to  a  shameful  death. 
That,  too,  is  considered  a  confirmation  of  the  dogma. 
"  Who  was  delivered  for  our  offences,  and  was  raised 
again  for  our  justification"  (Eom.  iv.  25).  The  resurrec- 
tion is  mentioned  as  a  miracle,  and  it  says  that  he  was 
delivered  on  account  of  our  sins.  "  Whom  God  hath  set 
forth  to  be  a  propitiation  through  faith  in  his  blood,  to 
declare  his  righteousness  for  the  remission  of  sins  that  are 
past"  (Rom.  iii.  25).  Again  a  misty,  tangled  sentence, 
like  all  of  Paul's  expressions,  which  denote  one  and  the 
same  thing,  namely,  that  the  death  of  a  just  man  has 
freed  men  from  their  previous  errors.  And  all  that  is 
regarded  as  a  proof.  But  the  chief  proof  is  found  in  the 
interpretations  of  the  fathers  of  the  church,  that  is,  of  those 
men  who  have  invented  the  dogma  of  the  redemption. 

"  (a)  St.  Barnabas :  '  We  will  believe  that  the  Son  of 
God  could  not  have  suffered  except  for  us  —  for  our  sins 
he  wished  to  bring  as  a  sacrifice  the  vessel  of  the  spirit.' 
(6)  St.  Clement  of  Rome :  '  We  shall  look  up  to  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  who§e  blood  was  given  for  us  —  we  shall 
look  up  attentively  to  the  blood,  and  shall  consider  how 
precious  his  blood  is  before  God,  since,  having  been  spilled 
for  our  salvation,  it  obtained  the  grace  of  repentance  for 
the  whole  world.'  (c)  Ignatius  Theophorus :  '  Christ 
died  for  you,  in  order  that  you,  believing  in  his  death, 
might  be  saved  from  death.'  (d)  St.  Policarp :  *  He 
suffered  death  itself  for  our  sins  —  ;  he  suffered  everything 
for  us,  that  we  might  live  in  him.' "     (p.  142.) 

Or  another  place,  as  a  sample  of  that  arbitrariness  and 
blasphemous  pettiness,  with  which  the  whole  book  is 
permeated. 


290  CKITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

"  If  one  of  us  should  ask,  not  from  love  of  controversy, 
but  from  a  desire  to  know  the  truth :  '  Why  did  the  Lord 
suffer  death  on  the  cross  rather  than  any  other  ? '  let  him 
know  that  that  particular  death,  and  no  other,  could  save 
us,  and  the  Lord  suffered  precisely  that  for  our  salvation, 
for,  if  he  came  for  the  purpose  of  taking  upon  himself  the 
curse  which  had  been  upon  us,  then  how  else  could  he 
become  a  participant  of  the  curse,  if  he  did  not  suffer  the 
death  which  was  under  the  curse  ?     And  that  is  the  death 
on  the  cross,  for  it  is  written :  Cursed  is  every  one  that 
hangeth  on  a  tree  (Gal.  iii.  13).      In  the  second  place,  if 
the  death  of  the  Lord  is  the  redemption  of  all,  if  by  it  the 
middle  wall  of  partition  is  broken  down  (Eph.  ii.  14)  and 
the  calling  together  of  the  tongues  takes  place,  then  how 
could  he  have  called  us  to  the  Father,  if  he  had  not  been 
crucified  ?      For  it  is  only  on  the  cross  that  one  can  die 
with  extended  hands.     And  so  that  is  the  reason  why  the 
Lord  had  to  suffer  death  on  the  cross  and  on  the  cross 
to  extend  his  arms,  in  order  with  one  hand  to  attract  to 
himself  the  ancient  nation,  and  with  the  other  the  pagans, 
and  thus  to  unite  them  in  himself.     He  predicted  that 
about  himself  when  he  wanted  to  show  with  what  kind 
of  a  death  he  meant  to  redeem  all :  If  I  be  lifted  up  from 
the  earth,  I  will  draw  all  men  unto  me  (John  xii.  32). 
And  again  :  the  enemy  of  our  race,  the  devil,  having  fallen 
from  heaven,  is  wandering  here  in  the  aerial  sphere  and 
ruhng  over  demons  who  are  like  him  in   disobedience, 
and  by  means  of  them  he  entices  with  visions  those  who 
fall  \ictims  to  his  deception,  or  in  every  way  tries  to 
hinder  those  who  are  tending  upwards;  thus  speaks  of 
him  the  Apostle  Paul,  calling  him  the  prince  of  the  power 
of  the  air,  the  spirit  that  now  worketh  in  the  children  of 
disobedience  (Eph.  ii.  2).     For  this  reason  the  Lord  came 
to  depose  the  devil,  to  clear  the  air  of  him,  and  to  open 
a  new  path  for  us  to  the  heavens,  as  the  apostle  has  said, 
through  a  curtain,  that  is,  through  his  flesh ;  but  that  he 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  291 

could  do  Duly  through  his  death,  and  what  death  could  it 
have  heen  other  than  one  that  takes  place  in  the  air,  that 
is,  on  the  cross  ?  For  only  he  who  is  crucified  dies  in  the 
air.  And  thus  the  Lord  has  not  without  cause  suffered 
death  on  the  cross  :  having  been  lifted  on  the  cross,  he 
purified  the  air  from  the  suares  of  the  devil."     (p.  144.) 

Eedemption,  the  church  says,  is  a  fundamental  dogma, 
on  which  the  whole  doctrine  is  based.  Where  is  it  ex- 
pressed ?  In  the  Gospels,  that  is  in  the  words  of  Jesus 
Christ  himself,  who  came  to  save  men,  and  in  the  words 
of  the  evangehsts  who  wrote  down  the  words  of  Christ, 
there  is  not  any  mention  of  this  dogma.  The  church 
asserts  that  the  dogma  is  expressed  in  Christ's  words, 
"  The  Son  of  man  must  be  hfted  up ; "  in  the  spurious 
words,  "  The  lamb  which  taketh  upon  himself  the  sins  of 
the  world ; "  in  the  words,  "  The  Son  of  man  has  come  to 
minister ; "  in  the  words,  "  I  am  a  good  shepherd  who  will 
not  spare  my  life  for  my  sheep  ; "  then  in  the  words,  when, 
breaking  the  bread,  he  said,  "  This  is  my  body,  for  you  do 
I  break  it,"  and,  at  last,  in  what  Caiaphas  said.  That  is, 
obviously,  untrue,  but,  according  to  the  teaching  of  the 
church,  all  this  is  expressed  more  clearly  in  the  Epistles, 
that  is,  in  the  interpretations  of  Christ's  words,  and  more 
clearly  still  in  the  interpretations  of  the  fathers.  But 
the  redemption  is  the  fundamental  dogma  of  our  salvation, 
—  how  is  it  then  that  Christ,  who  came  to  save  us,  did 
not  more  clearly  express  the  dogma,  but  left  all  this  to 
the  interpretation  of  Epiphanius,  to  the  unknown  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews,  and  to  others.  If  this  dogma  is  not  only 
so  important  that  on  the  belief  in  it  depends  all  our 
salvation,  but  also  is  simply  necessary  to  men,  and  Christ 
came  down  upon  earth  out  of  love  for  men,  he  ought  to 
have  expressed  it  clearly  and  simply  at  least  once,  but 
as  it  is  he  did  not  even  hint  at  it.  And  everything  which 
I  can  find  out  about  this  great  truth,  which  is  necessary 
for  my  salvation,  I  must  draw  from  the  writings  about 


292  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

Christ,  composed  by  various  persons,  and  from  the  inter- 
pretations of  some  fathers,  who  apparently  did  not  under- 
stand themselves  what  they  were  saying.  This  is  what 
it  goes  on  to  say,  what  I  must  believe  in,  and  what  Christ 
meant  to  say  to  all  men,  but  did  not  say. 

152.  Very  detailed  exposition  in  the  word  of  God  of 
our  redemption  through  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ. 

(1)  Christ  has  purified  us;  (2)  has  redeemed  us;  (3) 
has  reconciled  us  to  God ;  (4)  has  freed  us  from  the 
slavery  of  sin ;  (5)  has  established  a  new  covenant  with 
God ;  (6)  has  made  us  the  adopted  children  of  God ;  (7) 
has  given  us  the  means  for  being  holy ;  (8)  has  obtained 
eternal  life  for  us.  It  turns  out  that  Christ  has  given  us 
eight  advantages  through  his  sacrifice,  but  all  these  advan- 
tages are  imaginary,  for  no  one  has  ever  seen  them  or  ever 
will  see  them,  as  was  the  case  with  that  sleight-of-hand 
performer  who  reeled  the  Virgin's  endless  hairs,  wliich  no 
one  could  see. 

After  Christ  all  of  us  became  pure,  holy,  no  longer 
slaves  to  sin,  eternal,  and  so  forth.  Thus  the  fathers 
assure  us,  and  I  am  compelled  to  believe  this  time  what 
they  tell  me,  not  about  something  invisible,  but  about 
myself,  although  I  know  that  all  that  is  untrue.  And 
again,  as  always,  what  is  not  and  cannot  be,  is  explained 
at  great  length.  About  the  moral  law  of  Christ  there  is 
just  half  a  page,  en  passant  ;  but  about  the  essences,  about 
redemption,  there  is  no  end  to  words,  though  that  has 
never  been  and  never  can  be.  One  would  think  that  all 
has  been  said,  but  no,  now  we  get  a  discussion  about 
the  — 

153.  Disclosure  of  the  method  itself  of  our  redemption 
through  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ.  "  The  whole  mystery 
of  our  redemption  through  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ  con- 
sists in  this,  that  he  in  our  place  paid  the  debt  with  his 
blood  and  fully  satisfied  the  justice  of  God  for  our  sins, 
for  which  we  ourselves  had  been  unable  to  pay ;  in  other 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  293 

words,  in  our  place  he  achieved  and  suffered  everything 
which  was  necessaiy  for  the  remission  of  our  sins.  The 
possibihty  in  general  of  such  a  substitution  of  one  person 
for  another  before  the  judgment  of  the  justice  of  God,  of 
such  an  acquittal  of  a  moral  debt  by  one  person  in  the 
place  of  another  or  of  others,  must  necessarily  be  admitted 
by  common  sense :  (a)  when  for  this  substitution  we 
have  the  will  of  God  and  the  consent  of  the  Supreme 
Lawgiver  and  Judge  ;  (b)  when  the  person  who  has  taken 
upon  himself  to  pay  the  debt  for  other  delinquent  debtors 
does  not  himself  stand  in  the  place  of  debtor  before  God  ; 
(c)  when  he  voluntarily  determines  to  execute  all  the  con- 
ditions of  the  debt  that  the  Judge  may  impose  upon  him, 
and  (d)  when,  at  last,  he  actually  offers  the  pay  which 
fully  satisfies  the  debt. 

"  All  these  conditions,  which  we  have  borrowed  from 
the  example  of  our  Saviour  and  have  only  generalized, 
have  all  been  fulfilled  by  him  in  his  great  deed  for  our 
sake:  Our  Lord  Jesus  suffered  for  us  pain  and  death 
by  the  will  and  with  the  permission  of  his  Father,  our 
Supreme  Judge.  It  was  precisely  for  this  purpose  that 
he,  the  Son  of  God,  came  down  upon  earth,  in  order  to 
do,  not  his  will,  not  his  own  will,  but  the  will  of  him 
who  sent  him  (John  vi.  38),  and  during  his  whole  life 
busied  himself  only  with  doing  the  will  of  his  Father." 
(p.  148.) 

I  have  quoted  this  as  a  specimen  of  that  involuntarily 
blasphemous  form  of  speech  which  is  employed  by  the 
author,  whenever  the  subject  of  his  speech  is  a  blasphemy. 
Wliat  kind  of  debt,  and  pay,  and  court  is  he  talking 
about  ?  What  kind  of  an  expression  is  this,  "  God  busied 
himself  only  "  ? 

And  thus,  (1)  Christ  suffered  for  obeying  his  Father; 
(2)  he  was  sinless ;  (3)  he  suffered  voluntarily ;  (4)  the 
pay  for  the  debt  as  offered  by  Christ  surpasses  the  amount 
of  the  debt,  and  a  surplus  —  some  change  —  is  left.     It  is 


294  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

even  analyzed  who  gets  the  pay  for  the  debt.  All  that 
is  not  my  invention. 

"  Who  received  the  pay  for  tliis  redemption  ?  Some 
represented  that  it  was  brought  for  the  prince  of  this 
world,  the  devil,  in  whose  captivity  we  all  are.  But  St. 
Gregory  discusses  as  follows :  '  For  whom  and  for  what 
was  this  blood  spilled,  which  he  spilled  on  account  of  us, 
the  blood  of  the  great  and  most  glorious  God  and  high 
priest  and  victim  ?  We  were  in  the  power  of  the  deceiver, 
sold  for  our  sins,  having  bought  our  injury  by  our  lust. 
And  if  the  price  of  the  ransom  is  given  to  no  other  than 
the  one  who  has  us  in  his  power,  I  ask :  To  whom  and 
for  what  reason  was  this  ransom  paid  ?  If  to  the  deceiver, 
then  that  is  offensive.  The  robber  receives  the  ransom, 
and  receives  not  only  from  God,  but  God  himself ;  for  his 
oppression  he  takes  such  an  extortionate  price  that  it  was 
right  that  we  should  be  spared  for  it !  But  if  to  the 
Father,  then,  in  the  first  place,  in  what  manner  ?  We 
were  certainly  not  in  captivity  to  him.  And,  in  the 
second  place,  for  what  reason  is  the  blood  of  the  Only- 
begotten  One  agreeable  to  the  Father,  who  did  not  receive 
even  Isaac,  who  was  offered  by  his  father,  but  exchanged 
the  offering,  having  given  a  ram  in  place  of  the  sacrifice 
of  the  promise  ?  But  from  this  we  see  that  the  Father 
received  the  ransom  not  because  he  demanded  or  needed 
it,  but  on  account  of  his  house-management,  and  because 
man  had  to  be  sanctified  by  the  manhood  of  God,  in 
order  that  he  himself  might  free  us,  having  overcome  the 
tormentor  by  force,  and  might  lead  us  up  to  him  through 
the  Son,  who  mediates  and  arranges  everything  in  the 
honour  of  the  Fatlier,  to  whom  he  turns  out  to  be  obedi- 
ent in  everything.'"     (p.  154.) 

154.  The  extent  of  the  redemptory  actions  of  Christ's 
death. 

Christ's  sacrifice  not  only  redeemed  the  sin,  but  a  sur- 
plus was  left.     This  surplus  is  (1)  for  everybody ;    (2) 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  295 

extends  over  all  sins,  (a)  redeems  the  original  sin,  (h)  every 
sin,  (c)  all  previous  sins,  (d)  all  future  sins.  This  truth 
was  unanimously  preached  by  the  teachers  of  the  church, 
for  example  : 

"  (a)  By  St.  John  Chrysostom  :  '  That  the  benefits  given 
by  Jesus  Christ  are  more  numerous  than  the  evils  des- 
troyed, and  that  not  only  the  original  sin  was  destroyed, 
but  also  all  other  sins,  that  the  apostles  said  in  these 
words  :  The  free  gift  is  of  many  offences  unto  justification 
(Rom.  V.  16),'  and  farther:  'By  the  grace  was  destroyed 
not  only  the  original  sin,  but  also  all  other  sins ;  and  not 
only  the  sins  were  destroyed,  but  righteousness  was  given 
to  us,  and  Christ  set  aright  not  only  what  was  injured  by 
Adam,  but  reestabhshed  everything  in  a  greater  measure 
and  a  higher  degree.'  "     (p.  157.) 

"  (3)  For  all  times,  that  is,  from  the  beginning  of  the 
fall  of  man  to  the  end  of  the  world.  Therefore,  (a)  Christ 
is  called,  on  the  one  hand,  a  lamb,  and,  on  the  other,  a 
high  priest.  Similarly,  (h)  the  redemption  achieved  by 
him  is  called  eternal,  (c)  and  his  priesthood  unchangeable, 
for  he  ever  liveth  to  make  intercession  for  them  (Heb.  vii. 
24,  25).  How  to  understand  this  intercession  for  us  by 
Christ  the  Saviour  in  heaven,  is  explained  by  St.  Gregory 
the  Divine  : '  To  intercede  means  here  (Heb.  vii.  25)  to  nego- 
tiate (Trp€(T/3ev€Lv)  for  us  in  the  capacity  of  a  mediator,  as 
is  said  of  the  Spirit  who  maketh  intercession  for  us  (Eom. 
viii.  26).  .  .  .  Thus  also  we  have  an  advocate  in  Jesus 
(1  John  ii.  1),  not  in  the  sense  that  he  humbles  himself 
before  the  Father  and  falls  down  before  him  as  a  slave : 
far  be  from  us  such  a  dreadfully  slavish  thought,  which  is 
unworthy  of  the  Spirit !  It  is  not  proper  for  the  Father 
to  demand  it,  or  for  the  Son  to  suffer  it,  and  it  is  not 
right  to  think  so  of  God.'  The  blessed  Theophilactes  of 
Bulgaria :  '  Some  have  understood  the  expression  to  inter- 
cede for  us  to  mean  that  Jesus  Christ  had  a  body  (and  had 
not  put  it  off,  as  the  Manicheans  speak  idly).     That  is 


296  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

precisely  what  his  intercession  before  the  Father  is.  For, 
looking  at  it,  the  Father  recalls  his  love  for  men,  for  the 
sake  of  which  his  Son  assumed  the  body,  and  is  inclined 
to  charity  and  mercy.'  "     (p.  158.) 

By  the  way,  as  one  reads  similar  passages,  it  becomes 
evident  that  the  whole  mysterious,  incomprehensible 
Trinity  represented  itself  in  the  imagination  of  the  holy 
fathers  in  the  form  of  three  distinct,  quite  well  defined 
anthropomorphic  beings.     And  finally  : 

"  (4)  The  redemption  extends  over  the  whole  world." 
The  world  of  the  angels  was  separated  before,  but  now 
men  unite  with  it.  Nature  was  cursed  and  did  not  pro- 
duce of  itself ;  now  this  curse  no  longer  exists,  so  that  the 
redemption  extends  over  everything,  except  the  devils, 
because  the  devils  were  so  infuriated.  Some  Christians 
assume  that  the  devils,  too,  were  redeemed :  "  The  opinion 
of  the  ancient  Gnostics,  Marcionites,  and  Origenists,  who 
extended  the  action  of  the  redemption  to  the  fallen  angels 
themselves,  was  rejected  by  the  teachers  of  the  church 
and  solemnly  condemned  by  the  whole  church  at  the 
Fifth  Qilcumenical  Council." 

All  that  is  confirmed  by  Holy  Scripture  and  forms 
part  of  a  dogma. 

155.  The  consequence  of  the  deserts  of  the  cross  of 
Jesus  Christ  in  regard  to  himself :  the  condition  of  his 
glorification.  Christ  is  glorified  as  a  reward  for  having 
come  down  into  the  world. 

156.  The  relation  of  the  sacerdotal  ministration  of  Jesus 
Christ  to  his  prophetic  ministration.  "  Although  the 
chief  aim  of  the  sacerdotal  ministration  of  Jesus  Christ, 
that  is,  of  his  whole  exhaustion  and  especially  of  his 
death  on  the  cross,  was  to  achieve  our  redemption,  he  at 
the  same  time  subjected  himself  to  this  exhaustion  also 
for  other  purposes."     (p.  162.) 

The  chief  aim  is  the  redemption,  but  in  addition  there 
were  also  the  following  purposes :  (1)  to  give  us  an  ex- 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  297 

ample  by  his  life ;  (2)  to  deprive  the  Jews  of  their  faith 
in  the  corning  of  the  Messiah  in  glory ;  (3)  to  make  void 
the  laws  of  Moses ;  (4)  finally,  he  died  in  order  to  give 
a  clear  testimony  of  the  truth  that  he  was  God,  that  is, 
that  which  he  constantly  denied  being. 

All  this  chapter  is  remarkable  in  that  it  has  not  the 
shghtest  foundation  in  the  Holy  Canonical  Scripture,  but 
is  all  based  on  the  apocryphal  account,  has  not  the  slight- 
est human  meaning,  and,  what  is  most  important,  appears 
to  every  fresh  man  quite  superfluous.  Only  by  sub- 
jecting the  Theology  to  a  close  study,  can  one  guess  what 
it  is  needed  for.  There  is  but  one  purpose  which  this 
chapter  has,  and  that  is,  to  solve  the  contradiction  that  all 
men  perished  before  Christ,  whereas  we  recognize  the 
saints  of  the  Old  Testament.  What  is  to  be  done  with 
them !  And  so  the  apocryphal  account  of  Christ's 
descent  into  hell  is  taken,  and  the  question  is  solved,  and 
there  appears  the  royal  ministration  of  Christ.  After 
that  follows  a  chapter  on  the  royal  ministration  of  Christ. 

"  III.  157.  Connection  with  what  precedes,  conception 
of  the  royal  ministration  of  Christ,  and  the  truth  of  his 
ministration.  The  truth  of  the  royal  ministration  of  our 
Saviour  is  quite  clearly  testified  to  in  the  Word  of  God. 
(1)  He  was  born  a  king  and  vested  with  power.  Tor 
unto  us  a  child  is  born,  proclaims  the  prophet  Isaiah,  unto 
us  a  son  is  given  :  and  the  government  shall  be  upon 
his  shoulder:  and  his  name  shall  be  called  Angel  of 
the  Great  Council,  Wonderful,  Counsellor,  The  mighty 
God,  The  everlasting  Father,  the  Prince  of  Peace,  the 
Father  of  the  future  life.  And  great  is  his  government, 
and  of  his  peace  there  is  no  end,  upon  the  throne  of 
David,  and  upon  his  kingdom,  to  order  it,  and  to  estabhsh 
it  with  judgment  and  with  justice  from  henceforth  even 
for  ever  (Is.  ix.  6,  7 ;  cf.  Luke  i.  32,  33  ;  Matt.  ii.  2). 
He  was  a  king  and  had  a  royal  power  in  the  days  of  his 
humiliation,  for  he  himself  adopted  the  name  of  king,  as 


298  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

is  seen  from  the  accusation  which  was  brought  against 
him  by  the  Jews  (Matt,  xxvii.  11-37;  Mark  xv.  1-32), 
and  as  he  actually  affirmed  before  Pilate  (John  xviii.  37). 
He  applied  to  himself  the  regal  power,  as  the  words  of 
his  prayer  to  God  show :  Father,  the  hour  is  come  ;  glorify 
thy  Son,  that  thy  Son  also  may  glorify  thee :  as  thou 
hast  given  him  power  over  all  flesh,  that  he  should  give 
eternal  life  to  as  many  as  thou  hast  given  him  (John 
xvii.  1,  2).  In  his  very  acts  he  showed  himseK  a  king, 
when  he  entered  Jerusalem,  according  to  the  ancient 
prophecy :  Rejoice  greatly,  0  daughter  of  Sion ;  shout,  0 
daughter  of  Jerusalem :  behold,  thy  King  cometh  unto 
thee  :  he  is  just,  and  having  salvation ;  lowly,  and  riding 
upon  an  ass,  and  upon  a  colt  the  foal  of  an  ass  (Zech.  ix. 
9  ;  cf.  John  xii.  15 ;  Matt.  xxi.  5),  and  when  he  received 
the  solemn  acclamation  of  the  people :  Hosanna  to  the 
Son  of  David ;  blessed  is  the  King  of  Israel  that  cometh 
in  the  name  of  the  Lord  (Matt.  xxi.  9  ;  John  xii.  13). 
Finally,  in  all  his  glory  and  power  he  appeared  as  a  king 
in  the  condition  of  his  glorification,  when  he  said  to  his 
disciples :  All  power  is  given  unto  me  in  heaven  and  in 
earth  (Matt,  xxviii.  18),  and  when  God  actually  set  him 
at  his  own  right  hand  in  the  heavenly  places,  far  above 
all  principality,  and  power,  and  might,  and  dominion,  and 
every  name  that  is  named,  not  only  in  this  world,  but 
also  in  that  which  is  to  come:  and  hath  put  all  things 
under  his  feet  (Eph.  i.  20-22)." 

Those  are  the  proofs  of  the  regal  order  which  the 
church  ascribes  to  him  who  said  that  what  is  great  before 
men  is  an  abomination  before  God. 

158.  In  what  actions  was  the  royal  ministration  of 
Jesus  Christ  expressed  ?  His  miracles.  His  ministra- 
tion was  expressed  in  miracles.  They  are  all  counted 
out :  Cana  of  Galilee,  and  Lazarus,  and  the  casting  out  of 
the  devils.  "  Even  thns  in  the  days  of  the  exhaustion 
of  our  Saviour,  when  he  was  achieving  mainly  his  pro- 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  299 

phetic  and  sacerdotal  ministration,  his  miracles  showed 
that  he  was  at  the  same  time  the  King  of  the  Universe, 
tlie  vanquisher  of  hell  and  death."     (p.  168.) 

159.  The  descent  of  Jesus  Christ  into  hell  and  his 
victory  over  hell.  Another  regal  action  of  Christ's  de- 
scent into  hell  and  his  victory  over  it.  "  I.  The  teacliing 
that  the  Lord  Jesus  actually  went  into  hell  with  his  soul 
and  divinity,  when  his  body  was  in  the  grave,  and  that 
he  went  down  there  to  preach  salvation,  is  an  apostohc 
teaching."  There  follow  proofs.  But  not  all  agree  upon 
what  Christ  did  in  hell.  Some  say  that  he  took  them  all 
out,  while  others  maintain  that  he  took  out  only  the 
righteous. 

"  St.  Epiphanius :  '  Christ's  divinity  together  with  his 
soul  went  down  into  hell  in  order  to  lead  to  salvation 
those  who  had  died  before,  namely  the  holy  patriarchs.' 
St.  Cassianus :  '  Having  penetrated  into  hell,  Christ  with 
the  splendour  of  his  glory  dispelled  the  impenetrable 
darkness  of  Tartarus,  broke  the  brazen  doors,  and  led  the 
holy  prisoners,  who  were  kept  in  the  impenetrable  dark- 
ness of  hell,  with  him  to  heaven.'  St.  Gregory  the  Great : 
'  The  wrath  of  God,  in  relation  to  the  souls  of  the 
righteous,  passed  away  with  the  arrival  of  our  Redeemer, 
for  the  intercessor  of  God  and  of  men  freed  them  from 
the  prisons  of  hell,  when  he  himself  went  down  there  and 
led  them  up  to  the  joys  of  Paradise.' 

"  It  must  be  added  that  if  some  of  the  ancients  ex- 
pressed the  idea  that  Christ  led  out  of  hell  not  only  the 
just  men  of  the  Old  Testament,  but  also  many  others,  or 
even  all  the  prisoners  of  hell,  they  expressed  that  only  in 
the  form  of  guesses,  suppositions,  private  opinions." 

160.  Resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  and  his  victory  over 
death.  "  As  Christ  destroyed  hell  by  his  descent  into 
hell,  though  he  had  even  before  shown  his  regal  power 
over  the  forces  of  hell,  even  so  he  vanquished  death  by 
his  resurrection  from  death." 


300  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

161.  The  ascension  of  Jesus  Christ  into  heaven,  and 
the  opening  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  to  all  who  believe 
in  him. 

"  Before  the  descent  upon  earth  of  the  Son  of  God, 
heaven  was,  so  to  speak,  shut  against  all  earth-born  men 
and,  though  in  the  house  of  the  Father  there  are  many 
mansions  (John  xiv.  2,  3),  there  were  no  places  in  them 
for  the  sinful  posterity  of  Adam  ;  the  just  men  of  the 
Old  Testament,  after  their  death,  themselves  descended 
with  their  souls  to  hell  (Gen.  xxxvii.  35).  But,  after  our 
Lord  appeared  in  the  flesh  and  reconciled  God  with  men, 
heaven  with  earth ;  after  he  had  freed  the  just  men  of 
the  Old  Testament  from  hell,  by  his  descent  into  it,  and 
had  risen  from  the  dead,  he,  at  last,  solemnly  ascended 
heaven  with  the  human  essence  which  he  had  assumed 
and  in  this  manner  opened  for  all  people  a  free  access  to 
the  kingdom  of  God." 

A  proof  of  tliis  is  the  expression  of  the  symbol,  which 
is  to  be  taken  in  the  direct  sense :  Having  ascended 
heaven  (in  the  body),  and  sitting  (in  the  body)  on  the 
right  hand  of  his  Father. 

162.  Will  the  royal  ministration  of  Jesus  Christ  come 
to  an  end  ?  The  kingdom  of  Christ  will  end  when  there 
will  be  the  judgment.  All  will  be  resurrected.  Then 
Christ  will  transfer  the  kingdom  to  the  Father,  say  some, 
"  but  the  Evangelist  Luke  (i.  33)  and  Solomon  (Wis.  iii. 
4-8)  understood  the  original  power,  in  which,  having  an 
uninterrupted  dominion  from  eternity  to  eternity,  the  Son 
never  received  his  dominion  from  the  Father  and  never 
will  turn  it  over  to  the  Father."     (p.  178.) 

Thus  there  appears  an  explanation  of  the  royal  dignity 
of  Christ.  The  words  about  the  kingdom  of  heaven  give 
the  church  an  idea  about  the  royal  dignity  of  Christ. 
The  royal  dignity  is  considered  by  the  church  as  some- 
thing very  good  and  it  attaches  it  to  Christ,  to  him  who 
proclaimed  the  blessedness  of  the  poor,  who  preached  to 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  301 

them,  and   who  himself  said  that  the  last  will   be  the 
first. 

1 63.  Moral  application  of  the  dogma  about  the  mystery 
of  the  redemption.  One  would  think  that  there  could  be 
but  one  application  of  the  dogma  :  Christ  earned  above 
his  calculation,  with  a  surplus.  These  deserts  saved  us 
from  all  present,  past,  and  future  sins ;  so  one  has  to 
believe  firmly  in  that,  and  one  is  saved.  Thus  says  a  part 
of  the  Reformed  Church,  and  thus  live  all  our  Orthodox 
Churches.  But  for  decency's  sake,  it  says  among  the 
lessons  that  in  order  to  follow  the  teaching  of  Christ  it 
is  necessary:  (1)  to  believe  and  live  thus;  (2)  to  walk 
in  the  regeneration  of  life ;  (3)  to  esteem  the  law ;  (4) 
to  give  thanks  for  the  sacrifice ;  (5)  to  make  the  sign  of 
the  cross  with  the  hand,  because  Christ  died  on  the  cross ; 
(6)  to  live  holily ;  (7)  not  to  be  afraid  of  suffering ;  (8) 
to  pray  to  him;  (9)  not  to  be  afraid  of  the  devil;  (10) 
to  hope  that  we  shall  be  resurrected;  (11)  to  hope  for 
the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

Christ  appears  and  brings  with  him  a  joyful  message  of 
blessedness  for  men.  His  teaching  is  humility,  a  sub- 
mission to  the  will  of  Grod,  love.  Christ  is  tormented  and 
executed.  Up  to  his  death  he  continues  to  be  true  to  his 
teaching.  His  death  confirms  his  teaching.  His  teaching 
is  adopted  by  his  disciples,  and  they  preach  him  and  say 
that  he  is  equal  to  God  by  his  virtues,  and  that  by 
liis  death  he  has  proved  the  truth  of  his  teaching. 
But  his  teaching  is  salutary  for  people.  The  crowd 
joins  the  new  teaching.  They  are  told  that  he  is  a 
divine  man  and  that  by  his  death  he  has  given  us  the 
law  of  salvation.  Of  all  his  teaching  the  crowd  under- 
stands best  that  he  is  divine,  consequently  a  God,  and 
that  his  death  has  given  us  salvation.  The  crude  concep- 
tion becomes  the  possession  of  the  crowd  and  is  mutilated, 
and  the  whole  teaching  recedes,  and  the  first  place  is  taken 
up  by  the  divinity  and  the  saving  quality  of  his  death. 


302  CKITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

The  whole  business  is  to  beheve  in  this  new  God  .and  that 
he  has  saved  us :  it  is  necessary  to  believe  and  pray. 
That  is  contrary  to  the  teaching  itself,  but  there  are 
teachers  who  undertake  to  reconcile  and  elucidate  and 
they  reconcile  and  elucidate.  It  turns  out  that  he  is 
God-man,  that  he  is  the  second  person  of  the  Trinity,  that 
sin  and  a  curse  were  upon  us,  and  he  has  redeemed  us. 
And  the  whole  teaching  is  reduced  to  the  faith  in  this 
redemption,  and  the  whole  teaching  is  left  out  and  gives 
place  to  faith.  It  is  necessary  to  beheve  in  Christ  the 
God  and  in  redemption,  and  in  that  alone  lies  the  salva- 
tion. 

Of  the  teaching  of  Christ,  since  it  cannot  be  rejected, 
there  is  the  merest  mention.  It  says  that,  amoug  other 
things,  Christ  taught  self-renunciation  and  love,  and  that 
it  does  not  hurt  and  is  even  good  to  follow  him.  Why 
follow  ?  Nothing  is  said  about  that,  since,  in  reality,  it 
is  not  needed  for  salvation,  and  salvation  is  obtained  any- 
way by  the  sacerdotal  and  royal  ministration  of  Christ, 
that  is,  by  the  very  fact  of  the  redemption.  Here  w^e 
have  again  the  same  as  in  the  case  of  the  original  sin  and 
the  deification  of  Christ.  The  doctrine  about  the  redemp- 
tion is  obviously  crude ;  a  true  idea,  verbally  compre- 
hended, is  reduced  to  a  teaching,  and  a  prohibition  is 
imposed  on  any  other  interpretation  than  the  one  accepted 
by  the  chui-ch.  With  a  certain  effort,  as  I  recall  my 
childish  years  and  some  feeble-minded  persons,  I  can 
imagine  how  such  a  narrow  conception  of  the  meaning 
of  Christ  may  be  alone  accessible.  But  why  not  permit 
me  to  think,  as  I  do,  that  Christ  has  saved  us  by  havuig 
discovered  the  law  which  gives  salvation  to  those  who 
follow  it,  and  that  he  has  redeemed  us  by  having  sealed 
the  truth  of  his  teaching  by  his  death  on  the  cross  ?  My 
conception  includes  that  of  the  churcb,  and  not  only  does 
not  destroy  anything,  but  puts  forward  as  the  first  im- 
portant work  effort,  that  efilbrt  by  which,  according  to  the 


CRITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY         303 

words  of  Christ,  the  kmgdom  of  heaven  is  now  received ; 
it  does  not  exactly  reject,  but  merely  ascribes  less  impor- 
tance to  those  reflections  about  the  purposes  and  means 
of  God,  about  which  I  can  know  nothiug,  and  which  I 
understand  less  the  more  I  am  told  about  them.  Is  it 
not  better  for  me  to  believe  only  that  God  has  certainly 
done  the  best  for  me,  and  that  T,  too,  must  do  the  best  I 
can  ?  If  I  am  going  to  do  so,  without  discussing  what 
the  redemption  consisted  in  and  what  it  was,  whatever  it 
may  have  been,  it  will  not  get  away  from  me.  And  how 
about  it,  if  I  put  my  reliance  in  the  redemption  of  Christ 
and  neglect  that  which  I  ought  to  do  for  my  redemption  1 


XIII. 

Division  II.  About  God  the  Saviour  and  his  spedal 

relation  to  the  humau  race. 

Such  is  the  title  of  this  division.  All  this  division, 
with  the  exception  of  the  last  chapter  about  retribution, 
is  occupied  with  the  exposition  of  the  teaching  about  the 
church  and  its  mysteries. 

Chapter  I.  About  God  as  a  sanctitier.  165.  Conception 
of  sanctificatiou  ;  participation  of  all  the  persons  of  the 
Most  Holy  Trinity  in  the  matter  of  sanctificatiou,  and 
recital  of  means  or  conditions  for  sanctificatiou.  In  this 
article,  after  the  teaching  and  the  proofs  of  the  fact  that 
all  three  persons  take  part  in  our  sanctificatiou  (the 
Father  is  the  source,  the  Sou  —  the  cause,  the  Holy  Ghost 
—  the  one  who  achieves  the  sauctification),  it  says : 

"  IV.  In  order  that  we  might  be  able  to  make  the 
deserts  of  our  Saviour  our  own  and  really  be  sanctified,  he 
(1)  founded  on  earth  his  kingdom  of  grace,  the  church, 
as  a  living  instrument  through  which  our  sanctificatiou 
takes  place ;  (2)  coumuuiicates  to  us  in  the  church  and 
through  the  church  the  grace  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  as  a 
force  which  sanctifies  us ;  and  (3)  has  established  sacra- 
ments in  the  church,  as  means  through  which  the  grace 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  communicated  to  us."       (p.  187.) 

Christ  has  founded  the  church  for  our  sanctificatiou. 
The  concept  of  the  church  I  met  in  the  very  beginning 
of  the  Theology.  In  the  very  beginning  it  said  that  a 
dogma  was  a  decree  of  the  church,  aud  later  on,  in  the 
whole  exposition  of  the  dogmas,  their  correctness  was 
defined  by  stating  that  the  church  taught  so  in  regard  to 

304 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  305 

them.  But  heretofore  there  has  been  no  definition  of  the 
church,  of  what  is  to  be  understood  by  the  word.  From 
everything  which  I  knew  before,  from  everything  which 
had  been  expounded  so  far,  I  assumed  that  the  church  was 
a  collection  of  believers,  established  in  such  a  way  that  it 
can  express  and  determine  its  decrees.  But  now  begins  the 
teaching  about  the  church  as  being  an  instrument  for 
the  sanctification  of  men.  It  says  that  the  church  is 
Christ's  kingdom  of  grace,  that  it  communicates  to  us  the 
grace  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  that  it  has  sacraments,  but 
nothing  is  said  about  the  church  on  which  the  dogmas 
which  have  been  expounded  heretofore  are  based  ;  on  the 
contrary,  the  church  receives  here  an  entirely  different 
meaning  from  what  I  ascribe  to  it  as  the  foundation  of 
the  whole  teaching  about  faith.     Then  follows : 

166.  The  different  meanings  of  the  word  "church." 
The  sense  in  which  the  teaching  about  it  will  be  expounded 
here,  and  points  of  view  on  the  subject.  The  various 
meanings  of  the  word  "  church "  are  explained.  All 
three  meanings  which  are  ascribed  to  the  word  "  church  " 
are  such  that  with  them  is  impossible  the  conception 
of  that  church  which  has  established  the  dogmas. 

The  first  meaning  of  the  word  "  church  "  is,  according 
to  the  Theology,  "  a  society  of  all  the  rational  and  free 
beings,  that  is,  of  the  angels  and  of  the  men  who  beheve 
in  Christ  the  Saviour,  and  of  the  men  who  are  united  in 
him  as  in  their  one  head."     (p.  187.) 

Such  a  definition  of  the  church  not  only  does  not  make 
clearer  the  conception  of  the  church  which  establishes 
dogmas,  but  imparts  in  advance  to  the  forthcoming  defini- 
tion of  the  church  certain  symptoms,  with  wliich  it  is  still 
harder  to  understand  how  such  a  church  could  ever  have 
established  any  dogmas.  The  further  elucidations  of  this 
first  meaning  do  not  clear  it  up.  All  it  says  is :  "  that  in 
the  dispensation  of  the  fulness  of  times  he  might  gather 
together  in  one  all  things  in  Christ,  both  which  are  in 


306  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

heaven,  and  which  are  on  earth;  even  in  him:  and  set 
him  at  his  own  right  hand  in  the  heavenly  places,  far 
above  all  principality,  and  power,  and  might,  and  domin- 
ion, and  every  name  that  is  named,  not  only  in  this 
world,  but  also  in  that  which  is  to  come:  and  hath  put 
all  tilings  under  his  feet,  and  gave  him  to  be  the  head 
over  all  things  to  the  church,  which  is  his  body,  the  fulness 
of  him  that  filleth  all  in  all  (Eph.  i.  10,  20-23)."  (p.  188.) 

This,  according  to  the  Theology,  forms  one  meaning  of 
the  word  "  church."     Here  is  the  second  meaning : 

"  According  to  the  second,  less  broad  and  more  accepted 
meaning,  the  church  of  Christ  embraces  all  men  who  pro- 
fess and  who  have  professed  the  faith  of  Christ,  every  one 
of  them,  no  matter  at  what  time  they  have  lived  and 
wherever  they  may  be,  whether  living  upon  earth,  or 
already  in  the  country  of  the  dead." 

According  to  this  second  meaning,  the  church  cannot 
be  what  I  supposed  it  to  be,  and  cannot  establish  dogmas, 
for  an  aggregate  of  all  men  living  and  of  those  who  have 
lived  at  any  time  cannot  express  any  dogmas.  Then  fol- 
lows an  analysis  who  of  the  dead  belong  to  this  church 
and  who  do  not  (pp.  190,  191),  and  after  dividing  the 
church  into  militant  and  triumphant,  there  is  given 
the  third  meaning  of  the  word  "  church." 

"Finally,  in  a  still  narrower,  but  most  accepted  and 
usual  sense,  the  church  of  Christ  signifies  only  the  mili- 
tant church  of  the  New  Testament,  or  Christ's  kingdom  of 
grace.  'We  believe  as  we  have  been  taught  to  believe,' 
say  the  bishops  of  the  East  in  their  epistle  on  the  Ortho- 
dox faith,  'in  the  so-called  and  real,  the  One,  Holy, 
Catholic,  Apostolic  Church,  which  embraces  all  in  every 
place,  no  matter  who  they  may  be,  who  believe  in  Christ, 
who,  still  existing  in  their  earthly  pilgrimage,  have  not 
yet  taken  up  their  abode  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven.'  In 
this  sense  we  are  going  to  take  the  church  in  the  present 
exposition  of  the  doctrine  concerning  it."      (p.  191.) 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  307 

Accordiug  to  this  meaning,  by  the  word  "  church  "  are 
understood  all  those  who  beheve  or  have  believed  in 
Christ.  This  meaning  is  in  general  intelligible,  but  even 
in  this  sense  tlie  church  does  not  correspond  to  that  activ- 
ity of  the  church,  the  sanctification  of  men,  and  still  less 
to  that  other  activity,  the  establishment  of  dogmas,  of  which 
the  Theology  lias  been  speaking  in  all  preceding  chapters. 
Such  a  church  cannot  serve  as  an  instrument  of  sanctifica- 
tion, for,  if  by  church  are  to  be  understood  all  the  behevers 
in  Christ,  then  all  believers  will  be  sanctifying  all  believers. 
In  order  that  the  church  should  be  able  to  sanctify  all 
believers,  it  must  of  necessity  be  a  special  institution 
among  all  the  believers.  Still  less  can  such  a  church 
establish  any  dogmas,  for,  if  all  believing  Christians 
believed  alike,  there  would  be  no  dogmas  and  no  teaching 
of  the  church  in  refutal  of  heretical  teachings.  The  fact 
that  there  are  believers  in  Christ  who  are  heretics  and  who 
reject  some  dogmas  and  put  forward  others  which  in  their 
opinion  are  true,  shows  that  the  church  must  of  necessity 
be  understood  not  as  all  behevers  in  Christ,  but  as  a  cer- 
tain estabhshment,  which  not  onlv  does  not  embrace  all 
the  Christians,  but  even  is  a  special  institution  among 
Christians  who  are  not  heretics. 

If  there  are  dogmas  which  are  expressed  in  defiuite, 
unchangeable  words,  these  words  must  be  expressed  and 
worked  out  by  an  assembly  of  men  who  have  agreed  to 
accept  this,  and  not  another  expression. 

If  there  is  an  article  of  a  law,  there  must  of  necessity 
exist  lawgivers  or  a  legislative  assembly.  Although  I 
may  be  able  to  express  myself  by  saying  that  the  article 
of  the  law  is  a  true  expression  of  the  will  of  the  whole 
nation,  I,  in  order  to  explain  this  institution,  must  show 
that  the  legislative  assembly  which  gave  the  law  is  a  true 
exponent  of  the  will  of  the  people,  and  for  that  I  must 
define  the  legislative  assembly  as  an  institution.  Just  so 
the   Theology,  which  has  expounded  so   many  dogmas, 


308  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

which  has  recognized  them  as  the  only  true  ones,  and  which 
asserts  their  truth  by  saying  that  the  church  has  accepted 
them  as  such,  must  tell  us  what  the  church  itself  is 
that  has  established  these  dogmas.  But  the  Theology 
does  nothing  of  the  kind :  on  the  contrary,  it  gives  to  the 
church  the  meaning  of  a  union  of  angels  and  men,  both 
living  and  dead,  and  the  union  of  all  believers  in  Christ, 
from  which  can  result  neither  sanctification,  nor  the  estab- 
lishment of  dogmas.  The  Theology  in  this  case  acts  as 
would  act  a  man,  who,  trying  to  assert  his  right  to  a  leg- 
acy, instead  of  announcing  first  of  all  those  grounds  on 
which  he  bases  his  rights,  should  speak  of  the  legality  in 
general  and  of  the  right  of  inheritance,  should  prove  the 
falseness  of  the  pretensions  of  all  the  others,  and  should 
even  explain  his  own  management  of  the  debatable  prop- 
erty, but  should  not  say  a  word  about  that  on  which  his 
rights  are  based.  That  is  precisely  what  the  Theology 
does  in  all  this  division  about  the  teaching  of  the  church. 
It  speaks  of  the  foundation  of  the  church  by  Christ,  of 
the  heretical  teachings  which  do  not  agree  with  the 
church,  of  the  activity  of  the  church,  but  not  a  word  is 
said  as  to  what  is  to  be  understood  by  the  true  church, 
and  the  definition  of  the  church  as  such  which  corresponds 
with  its  activity  —  the  sanctification  of  men  and  the 
establishment  of  dogmas  —  is  given  only  at  the  end,  and 
here  again  not  in  the  form  of  a  definition,  but  in  the  form 
of  a  description  and  subdivision.  And  thus,  without 
giving  a  definition  of  the  church  which  would  correspond 
to  reality,  the  Theology  says  : 

"  In  order  that  this  exposition  may  be  as  detailed  as  pos- 
sible, we  shall  view  the  church :  (1)  from  the  more  exter- 
nal side,  namely,  from  the  side  of  its  origin,  dissemination, 
and  purpose  ;  (2)  from  a  more  internal  side  (*  more '  —  for 
it  is  impossible  entirely  to  separate  the  internal  from  the 
external  side  of  the  church),  and  we  shall  speak  of  the  com- 
position and  internal  structure  of  the  church ;  (3)  finally, 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  309 

as  a  consequence  from  everything  which  has  been  said,  we 
shall  give  an  exact  idea  about  the  essence  itself  of  the 
church  and  of  its  essential  properties."     (p.  191.) 

167.  Here  the  Theology  speaks  of  the  establishment  of 
the  church  by  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  proved  that 
the  church,  according  to  the  definition  of  the  Theolog}^  — 
as  men  who  believe  in  Christ,  —  was  established  by  Jesus 
Christ.  In  this  article  it  is  proved  that  Jesus  Christ 
wished  that  men,  having  accepted  the  new  faith, 
should  not  maintain  it  separated  from  each  other, 
but  should  form  for  this  purpose  a  separate  religious 
society. 

"  The  desire  to  form  one  society  out  of  his  followers, 
the  Saviour  has  frequently  expressed,  for  example,  (a) 
after  the  Apostle  Peter,  in  the  name  of  all  the  apostles, 
professed  him  as  the  Son  of  God :  Upon  this  rock,  that 
is,  on  this  confession,  our  Lord  then  said  to  us,  will  I  build 
my  church,  and  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against 
it  (Matt.  xvi.  18) ;  (b)m  the  parable  of  the  good  shepherd, 
in  these  words :  I  am  the  good  shepherd,  and  know  my 
sheep,  and  am  known  of  mine.  And  other  sheep  I  have, 
which  are  not  of  this  fold :  them  also  I  must  bring,  and 
they  shall  hear  my  voice ;  and  there  shall  be  one  fold, 
and  one  shepherd  (John  x.  14,  16);  (c)  in  the  prayer 
to  the  Heavenly  Father :  That  they  all  may  be  one ;  as 
thou.  Father,  art  in  me,  and  I  in  thee,  that  they  also  may 
be  one  in  us  (John  xvii.  20,  21).  With  the  idea  of  found- 
ing his  kingdom  of  grace  upon  earth  he  began  his  first 
sermon  to  men,  as  the  Evangelist  Matthew  tells  us  :  From 
that  time  Jesus  began  to  preach,  and  to  say,  Repent :  for 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand  (Matt.  iv.  17).  With 
the  same  sermon  the  Lord  sent  his  disciples  out  among  the 
Jews :  Go,  he  said  to  them,  to  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house 
of  Israel.  And  as  ye  go,  preach,  saying,  The  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  at  hand  (Matt.  x.  6-8).  And  how  often  he 
spoke  to  men  about  this  kingdom  of  God,  both  in  parables 


310  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

and  not  in  parables  !  (Matt.  xiii.  24,  44-47  ;  xxii.  2  ;  xxv. 
1 ;  Luke  viii.  10,  and  elsewhere)."     (p.  192.) 

All  that  so  far  only  tells  us  that  Christ  wanted  to  dis- 
seminate his  teachiug,  —  the  teaching  about  the  kingdom 
of  heaven.  So  far  nothing  contradicts  the  meaning  which 
the  Theology  ascribes  to  the  church.  All  believers  in 
Christ  naturally  had  to  unite  in  faith  in  Christ.  But 
after  that  the  Theology  says : 

"  (2)  What  Christ  intended  to  do,  that  he  accomplished. 
He  himself  laid  the  foundation  for  his  church,  when  he 
chose  his  twelve  disciples,  who,  believing  in  him  and 
being  under  his  power,  formed  one  society  under  one  head 
(John  xvii.  13)  and  formed  his  first  church  ;  when,  on  the 
other  hand,  he  himself  arranged  everything  necessary 
in  order  to  form  a  definite  society  out  of  his  followers, 
namely :  (a)  he  established  the  order  of  the  teachers  who 
were  to  disseminate  his  faith  among  the  nations  (Eph.  iv. 
11,  12);  (&)  he  established  the  sacrament  of  the  baptism, 
in  order  to  receive  into  that  society  all  those  who  believed 
in  him  (Matt,  xxviii.  19  ;  John  iii.  22  ;  iv.  1 ;  Mark  xvi. 
16);  (c)  the  sacrament  of  the  eucharist,  for  the  closer 
union  of  the  members  of  the  society  among  themselves 
and  with  him,  as  the  head  (Matt.  xxvi.  26-28  ;  Mark  xiv. 
22-24;  Luke  xxii.  19,  20;  1  Cor.  xii.  23-26);  (d)  the 
sacrament  of  repentance,  for  the  reconciliation  and  new 
union  with  him  and  with  the  church  of  those  members 
who  violate  his  laws  and  decrees  (Matt,  xxviii.  15-18), 
as  also  all  other  sacraments  (Matt,  xviii.  18 ;  xxviii.  19  ; 
xix.  4-6 ;  Mark  vi.  13,  and  elsewhere).  For  that  reason 
the  Lord  spoke  in  the  days  of  his  public  service  about  his 
church  as  already  existing  (Matt,  xviii.  17)."     (p.  193.) 

Here  with  the  words  "definite  society"  begins  the 
obvious  departure  from  the  given  meaning  of  the  church, 
and  there  is  introduced  an  entirely  different  idea  of  the 
church  than  as  being  a  union  of  believers.  Here  the  The- 
ology is  apparently  speaking  of  the  teaching  church,  of 


CKITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY  311 

which  nothing  has  as  yet  been  said.  It  says  that  Christ 
appointed  teachers  for  the  dissemination  of  his  faith 
among  the  nations,  although  the  idea  of  the  teaching 
church  does  not  enter  into  the  definition  of  the  church 
as  being  a  union  of  behevers.  Still  less  do  the  sacraments 
enter  into  that  definition :  both  define  the  church  of  the 
chosen  among  the  believers.  But  let  us  suppose  that 
the  Theology  is  not  sticking  closely  to  its  definition,  that 
it  expounds  the  teaching  about  that  exclusive  church 
which  has  the  power  to  teach  and  impart  the  mysteries. 
Let  us  see  what  it  is  based  upon.  It  says  that  Christ 
himself  established  the  church  with  its  teachers  and  with 
the  sacraments  of  the  baptism,  eucharist,  and  repentance, 
and  the  texts  are  referred  to,  but  not  quoted.  Here  are 
the  texts : 

"  And  now  come  I  to  thee ;  and  these  things  I  speak 
in  the  world,  that  they  might  have  my  joy  fulfilled  in 
themselves  (John  xvii.  13)."  This  is  adduced  as  a  proof 
that  Christ  established  the  one  society,  the  church.  It 
is  evident  that  the  text  has  nothing  in  common  with  the 
establishment  of  the  church. 

"  And  he  gave  some,  apostles  ;  and  some,  prophets ;  and 
some,  evangelists ;  and  some,  pastors  and  teachers ;  for 
the  perfecting  of  the  saints,  for  the  work  of  the  ministry, 
for  the  edifying  of  the  body  of  Christ  (Eph.  iv.  11-12)." 
These  words  of  Paul,  who  did  not  even  know  Christ,  are 
ascribed  to  Christ.  The  other  texts  have  been  quoted, 
but  striking  is  the  text  which  proves  that  Christ  estab- 
lished the  sacrament  of  repentance : 

"  And  Jesus  came  and  spake  unto  them,  saying,  All 
power  is  given  unto  me  in  heaven  and  in  earth  (Matt, 
xxviii.  18)." 

On  this  passage  the  Theology  bases  the  establishment 
of  the  sacraments  by  Christ,  without  considering  that  all 
that  is  said  here  is  that  (according  to  an  incon-ect  inter- 
pretation of  the  Theology,  which  will  be  examined  later) 


312  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

Christ  transfers  his  power  to  the  apostles.  But  it  does 
not  say  wherein  this  power  is  to  consist.  Consequently 
any  false  teaching  may  with  equal  right  be  based  upon 
these  words.  But,  having  picked  out  these  quasi-confirm- 
atory texts,  the  Theology  in  the  end  corrects  itself  and 
admits  that  in  the  time  of  Christ  there  did  not  yet  exist 
a  church  with  sacraments  and  teachers.  In  these  discus- 
sions the  Theology  already  prepares  the  reader  for  that 
substitution  for  the  conception  of  the  church  a«  a  union 
of  all  believers  of  the  conception  of  a  teaching  and  sacra- 
mental church. 

In  the  following  discussion  the  church  is  mentioned  no 
longer  in  the  sense  in  which  it  was  mentioned  before,  as 
being  a  union  of  all  believers,  but  as  an  exclusive  church, 
separate  in  its  structure  and  in  its  rights  from  all  the 
other  behevers. 

"  (3)  Having  received  power  from  above  (Luke  xxiv. 
45),  the  holy  apostles,  after  receiving  the  divine  message, 
went  forth,  and  preached  everywhere,  the  Lord  working 
with  them,  and  confirming  the  word  with  signs  following 
(Mark  xvi.  20),  and  (a)  from  the  believers  in  various 
places  tried  to  form  societies  which  they  called  churches 
(1  Cor.  i.  2 ;  xvi.  19) ;  (h)  enjoined  these  believers  to 
have  gatherings  in  which  to  hear  the  word  of  God  and 
send  up  prayers  in  common  (Acts  ii.  42,  46  ;  xx.  7) ;  (c) 
exhorted  them  to  keep  the  unity  of  the  spirit  in  the  bond 
of  peace,  presenting  to  them  that  they  formed  one  body  of 
the  Lord  Jesus,  of  whom  they  were  but  members  in  par- 
ticular, and  had  one  Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism  (Eph. 
iv.  3,  4;  1  Cor.  xii.  27),  and  were  all  partakers  of  the 
one  bread  (1  Cor.  x.  17),  that  is,  had  everything  for 
their  internal  as  well  as  their  external  union  ;  \d)  finally, 
they  were  commanded  not  to  forsake  their  assemblings, 
under  the  penalty  of  expulsion  from  the  church  and  eter- 
nal perdition  (Heb.  x.  24,  25).  Thus,  with  the  will  and 
cooperation  of  the  Saviour,  who  himself  immediately  put 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  313 

down  the  foundation  of  his  church,  it  was  then  planted  in 
all  the  corners  of  the  world."     (p.  194.) 

It  says  that  the  church  was  not  one,  but  that  there 
were  many  separate  churches.  It  says  that  they  were  all 
one  body  of  Christ,  but  that  at  the  same  time  there  was 
one  church,  from  which  were  expelled  those  who  left 
the  assemblings.  Wliat  kind  of  a  church  it  was  that 
expelled  members  it  does  not  say.  Thus,  it  is  evident 
that  the  Theology  no  longer  is  treating  about  the  church 
which  it  defined  before,  but  some  other  church,  of  which 
the  definition  is  not  given.  In  the  proper  place  I  will 
show  how  incorrectly  the  Theology  makes  use  of  the 
texts  of  the  Gospel,  in  order  to  confirm  its  statements. 
In  the  next  article  it  becomes  apparent  that  there  is  no 
longer  any  mention  of  the  church  as  a  union  of  all  the 
believers  in  Christ,  but  of  some  other  kind  of  a  church. 

168.  The  extension  of  the  church  of  Christ:  who 
belongs  to  this  church,  and  who  does  not  belong  to  it. 

In  this  article  the  proof  is  brought  that  to  this  still 
undefined  church  belong  all  the  Orthodox  believers. 
But  it  does  not  say  who  decides  the  question  of  Ortho- 
doxy and  un-Orthodoxy.  At  the  same  time  there  is  a 
detailed  definition  of  who  these  un-Orthodox  believers 
are.  That  is  discussed  on  ten  pages.  This  discussion 
about  the  heretics  and  dissenters,  who  are  excluded 
from  the  Orthodox  Church,  which  is  not  yet  defined,  is 
remarkable : 

"  In  order  to  judge  correctly  in  respect  to  the  proposi- 
tions disclosed  by  us  as  to  the  heretics  and  dissenters,  it 
is  necessary  to  know  what  heresy  and  what  dissent  is, 
and  what  kind  of  heretics  are  meant  here.  About  heresy 
and  dissent  we  receive  the  following  ideas  from  the  an- 
cient  teachers  of  the  church :  (a)  From  Basil  the  Great : 
'  The  ancients  understood  one  thing  by  heresy,  another  by 
dissent,  and  still  another  thing  by  arbitrary  concourse. 
They  called  heretics  those  who  fell  off  and  became  es- 


314  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

tranged  from  faith ;  dissenters  —  those  who  differed  in 
opinion  in  regard  to  certain  church  subjects  and  questions 
which  admitted  of  healing ;  but  arbitrary  concourses  — 
meetings  formed  by  disobedient  presbyters  and  bishops 
and  the  ignorant  people ; '  (h)  from  St.  Jerome  :  '  Between 
heresy  and  dissent  there  is,  in  my  opinion,  this  difference, 
that  heresy  consists  in  the  subversion  of  the  dogma,  while 
a  dissent  similarly  expels  from  the  church  on  account  of  a 
disagreement  with  the  bishop  (proj^ter  ejnscopacetn  dis- 
sensionem).  Consequently  these  two  things  may  in  cer- 
tain relations  appear  different  by  their  origin ;  but  in  reality 
there  is  no  dissent  which  has  not  something  common  with 
some  heresy  in  its  revolt  against  the  church.' "     (p.  202.) 

Why  not  tell  the  truth  ?  The  following  words  are  not 
merely  remarkable,  but  simply  disgusting : 

"  When  we  say  that  the  heretics  and  the  dissenters  do 
not  belong  to  the  church,  we  do  not  mean  those  who  hold 
the  heresy  or  dissent  in  secret,  trying  to  appear  as  belong- 
ing to  the  church  and  outwardly  carrying  out  its  regula- 
tions ;  or  those  who  are  carried  away  by  heretical  and 
schismatic  errors  in  their  ignorance  and  without  any  mal- 
ice or  stubbornness,  for  it  is  evident  that  neither  have 
they  absented  themselves  from  the  society  of  the  be- 
lievers, nor  have  they  been  excommunicated  by  the  power 
of  the  church,  although  they  may  already  be  excommuni- 
cated by  the  judgment  of  God,  though  neither  they  nor 
we  may  know  it :  such  people  it  is  best  to  leave  to  the 
judgment  of  him  who  knows  all  the  secret  thoughts  of 
man,  and  searches  their  hearts  and  entrails.  But  we 
mean  the  declared  heretics  and  dissenters,  who  have  al- 
ready separated  themselves  from  the  church  or  are  excom- 
municated by  it,  consequently  intentional,  stubborn,  and 
therefore  in  the  highest  degree  guilty  heretics  and  dis- 
senters. Against  them  were  chiefly  directed  the  utterances 
of  the  holy  fathers  and  teacliers  of  the  church,  which 
we  have  quoted  above."     (p.  203.) 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  315 

That  is,  lie  before  God,  aud  we  will  not  excommunicate 
you ;  but  seek  the  truth  aud  dare  not  to  agree  with  us, 
and  we  will  curse  you.  The  churcli,  in  the  sense  in  which 
the  Theology  takes  it,  consists  in  all  the  behevers  in 
Christ,  and  this  church  separates  the  heretics  and  ex- 
communicates them. 

169.  The  aim  of  the  church  is  the  sanctification  of  sin- 
ners. "  The  church  is  ordained  and  therefore  obliged : 
(a)  to  preserve  the  precious  pledge  of  the  saving  faith 
(1  Tim.  vi.  20;  2  Tim.  i.  12-14)  and  to  disseminate  the 
teaching  of  that  faith  among  the  nations  ;  (h)  to  keep  and 
use  for  the  good  of  men  the  divine  mysteries  and  sacra- 
ments in  general ;  (c)  to  preserve  its  government  as 
established  by  God  and  to  make  use  of  it  in  conformity 
with  the  intention  of  the  Lord."     (p.  206.) 

The  church  is  understood  as  all  those  who  believe  in 
Christ,  and  yet  it  speaks  of  the  church  as  having  to  per- 
form sacraments,  and  govern.  It  is  evident  that  all  the 
believers  are  not  able  to  perform  the  sacraments  and  rule 
themselves,  and  so  the  Theology  by  the  word  "  church  " 
understands  something  different,  which  it  puts  in  the 
place  of  the  first  definition  of  the  church.  Farther  on  it 
says : 

170.  Outside  the  church  there  is  no  salvation,  and  the 
proof  is  given  that  it  is  necessary  to  belong  to  the  church. 
This  is  asserted  in  the  following  way : 

"  (1)  The  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  who  reconciled  us  with 
God :  for  there  is  none  other  name  under  heaven  given 
among  men,  whereby  we  must  be  saved  (Acts  iv.  12), 
and  even  before  that  the  Saviour  said :  He  that  believeth 
on  the  Son  hath  everlasting  life  ;  and  he  that  believeth  not 
the  Son  shall  not  see  life ;  but  the  wrath  of  God  abideth 
on  him  (John  iii.  36).  But  the  true  teaching  of  Christ 
and  about  Christ  is  preserved  and  preached  only  in  his 
church  and  by  his  church,  without  which  there  cannot  be 
a  true  faith  (liom.  x.  17)."     (pp.  206  aud  207.) 


316  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

Thus  the  faith  in  Christ  is  no  longer  merely  a  defini- 
tion of  the  church,  but  it  turns  out  that  in  the  place  of 
the  belief  in  Christ  is  put  the  behef  in  the  church. 

"  (2)  The  participation  in  the  holy  sacraments,  whereby 
are  given  unto  us  all  divine  powers  that  pertain  unto  hfe 
and  godhuess  (2  Pet.  i.  3)."     (p.  207.)     And  — 

"  (3)  Finally,  the  last,  a  good,  godly  life." 

The  proofs  for  all  that : 

"  Outside  the  church  there  is  no  hearing,  no  compre- 
hension of  the  Word  of  God ;  there  is  no  true  divine 
worship ;  Christ  is  not  found ;  the  Holy  Ghost  is  not 
communicated ;  the  death  of  the  Saviour  does  not  furnish 
salvation ;  there  is  not  the  feast  of  the  body  of  Christ ; 
there  is  no  fruitful  prayer ;  there  can  be  no  works  of  sal- 
vation, nor  true  martyrdom,  nor  exalted  virginity  and 
purity,  nor  fasting  salutary  for  the  soul,  nor  the  benevo- 
lence of  God.  (2)  In  the  church,  on  the  contrary,  there 
is  the  benevolence  and  grace  of  God ;  in  the  church  abides 
the  triune  God  ;  in  the  church  is  the  knowledge  of  truth,  the 
knowledge  of  God  and  of  Christ,  and  a  superabundance  of 
spiritual  ])euefits ;  in  the  church  are  the  true  saving  dog- 
mas, the  true  faith  as  derived  from  the  apostles,  true 
love,  and  the  straight  path  of  life."     (pp.  209  and  210.) 

Everything  has  been  said  about  the  church  that  the 
Theology  has  to  say.  It  was  said  that  it  was  founded  by 
Christ ;  it  was  determined  who  belonged  to  it,  and  who 
not ;  its  aims  and  means  have  been  mentioned ;  it  was 
said  that  it  is  necessary  to  belong  to  it  in  order  to  obtain 
salvation,  but  the  church  itself  has  not  yet  been  defined. 
All  that  was  said  was  that  its  meaning  is  —  all  the 
believers  in  Christ,  but  with  this  proviso,  that  the  church 
is  composed  by  those  who  believe  in  Christ  precisely  as 
tlie  church  teaches  them  to  believe  in  him,  that  is,  the 
meaning  of  the  church  is  now  modified  to  mean :  all  those 
who  believe  in  the  church.  But  what  this  church  itself 
is,  which  sanctifies  men  and  establishes  dogmas,  has  not 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  317 

yet  been  determined.  Only  iu  the  2d  Division,  in  Art. 
171,  this  mysterious  church  at  last  gets,  not  a  definition, 
but  a  descri})tion,  from  which,  at  last,  we  can  deduce  its 
definition,  which  corresponds  to  its  activity,  —  the  sancti- 
fication  and  the  estabUshment  of  dogmas. 

"  171.  Having  determined  the  extent  of  his  church, 
having  pointed  out  to  it  its  aim,  and  having  given  it  the 
proper  means  for  the  attainment  of  that  aim,  the  Lord 
Jesus  gave  it  at  the  same  time  a  definite  structure,  by 
which  the  attainment  of  this  aim  is  secured  and  made 
easy.  The  organization  of  the  church  consists  in  this : 
(a)  according  to  its  composition,  it  is  divided  into  two 
essential  parts :  the  congregation  and  the  divinely  estab- 
lished hierarchy,  which  are  placed  in  a  certain  relation  to 
each  other ;  (b)  the  hierarchy  is  subdivided  into  its  three 
essential  degrees,  whicli  are  distinct  from  each  other  and 
are  connected  among  themselves ;  (c)  the  congregation 
and  the  hierarchy  are  subject  to  the  supreme  judgment 
of  the  councils,  and  (d)  last,  the  whole  harmonious  body 
of  the  clnirch,  which  is  formed  from  so  many  different 
and  wisely  apportioned  members,  has  its  only  head  in  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  himself,  who  vivifies  it  with  his  Holy 
Ghost."     (pp.  210  and  211.) 

Only  now  do  we  at  last  get  a  definition  of  what  the 
church  is  which  has  been  talked  about  all  the  time,  the 
same  that  is  to  sanctify  men,  the  same  that  has  uttered 
all  the  dogmas  which  have  been  expounded  heretofore.  I 
do  not  yet  protest  against  this,  that  the  establishment  of 
the  church  which  has  determined  all  the  dogmas  is  one 
and  holy  and  has  Christ  for  its  head,  and  that  it  is  not 
possible  to  find  salvation  outside  it,  but  I  should  like  first 
the  subject  uttered,  and  then  the  predicate ;  I  should  like 
first  to  know  what  they  are  talking  about  that  is  holy  and 
one  and  has  Christ  for  its  head,  and  then  only  that  it  is 
holy,  and  so  forth.  But  in  the  exposition  of  the  Theology 
the  reverse  order  has  been  observed.    All  the  time  it  spoke 


318  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

of  the  unity,  holiness,  infallibility  of  the  church  and  ex- 
pounded its  teaching,  and  only  now  it  says  what  it  is. 
Only  now  it  becomes  clear  from  Art.  171  what  that 
church  is  which  sanctifies  men  through  sacraments,  and 
which,  amidst  false  dogmas,  establishes  those  that  are 
true.  It  says  that  the  church  is  divided  into  a  hier- 
archy and  the  congregation.  The  hierarchy  sanctifies 
and  teaches,  the  flock  is  sanctified,  ruled,  and  taught  by 
the  hierarchy.  It  must  obey,  consequently  it  is  only  the 
hierarchy  that  sanctifies  and  estabhshes  dogmas,  and  so 
the  hierarchy  alone  answers  that  definition  of  the  church, 
from  which  results  its  activity  of  the  sanctification  and  of 
the  establishment  of  the  dogmas,  and  so  the  hierarchy 
alone  is  holy  and  infallible,  and  only  the  hierarchy  answers 
completely  to  that  which  has  all  the  time  been  mentioned 
under  the  name  of  the  church.  In  Art.  173,  it  says  that 
the  pastors  must  teach  the  flock,  must  perform  the  sacra- 
ments for  it,  and  must  govern  it,  and  that  the  flock  must 
obey. 

"  St.  Gregory  the  Divine  says :  'As  in  the  body  some 
parts  govern  and,  as  it  were,  preside,  while  the  other  parts 
are  under  their  rule  and  dominion,  even  so  it  is  in  the 
churches.  God  has  decreed  that  some,  for  whom  this  is 
more  useful,  should  by  word  and  deed  be  directed  to  the 
performance  of  their  duties,  should  remain  herded  and 
under  rule,  while  others,  standing  above  the  rest  in  virtue 
and  nearness  to  God,  should  be  pastors  and  teachers  for 
the  perfecting  of  the  church,  and  should  have  the  same 
relation  to  others  that  the  soul  has  to  the  body,  and  the 
mind  to  the  soul,  so  that  one  and  the  other,  the  defective 
and  the  superabundant,  being  like  the  members  of  the 
body,  united  and  joined  into  one  composition,  bound  and 
coupled  with  the  Spirit,  may  represent  one  body,  perfect 
and  truly  worthy  of  Clirist  our  head.  For  that  reason  the 
societies  of  the  Christians,  who  of  their  own  will  departed 
from   their  obedience  to  the  bishop  and  the  presbyters. 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  319 

were  regarded  by  the  ancient  teachers  of  the  church  as 
unworthy  of  the  name  of  the  church,  and  were  called 
heretical,  a  rabble  of  apostates,  evil-thinking,  harmful, 
and  so  forth.'"    (p.  217.) 

The  church,  the  one  upon  which  the  whole  teaching 
is  based,  is  the  hierarchy.  The  Theology  before  that 
expounded  about  the  one  church,  the  kingdom  of  grace, 
the  body  of  Christ,  the  church  of  the  living  and  the 
dead  and  the  angels ;  then  of  all  those  who  believed  in 
Christ ;  then  by  degrees  it  added  to  this  first  definition 
another  concept ;  then  at  last  the  hierarchy  is  substituted 
for  that  church.  The  Theology  knows  very  well  that 
according  to  its  conception  the  church  is  nothing  but  the 
hierarchy,  and  sometimes  it  says  so,  as  in  the  Introduction 
to  the  Dogmatic  Theology,  as  in  the  expressions  of  the 
Eastern  Patriarchs,  as  always  in  the  expressions  of  the 
Catholic  Church ;  but  the  Theology  has  at  the  same  time 
to  confirm  its  definition  that  the  church  is  an  assembly  of 
all  the  believers,  and  so  it  does  not  like  to  say  directly 
that  the  church  is  the  hierarchy.  The  Theology  knows 
that  the  essence  of  the  matter  is  the  infallibility  and 
sacredness  of  the  hierarchy,  and  so  it  has  to  prove  first 
that  the  hierarchy  was  established  by  Christ,  and  that 
the  Theology  is  an  exposition  of  the  dogmas  as  confirmed 
by  that  same  hierarchy.  All  that  is  necessary  is  to  prove 
that  the  hereditary  hierarchy  was  established  by  Christ, 
and  that  we  are  the  inheritors  of  this  hierarchy,  and  then, 
no  matter  how  you  may  understand  it,  the  church,  the 
essence  of  the  church,  as  the  keeper  of  truth,  will  be 
nothing  but  hierarchs.  For  that  reason  the  Theology  uses 
all  its  efforts  to  prove  the  impossible,  namely,  that  Christ 
established  the  hierarchy,  and  a  hereditary  one  at  that, 
and  that  our  hierarchy  is  the  legitimate  heir,  and  such 
and  such  a  hierarchy,  not  ours,  is  illegitimate. 

172.  The  flock  and  the  divinely  established  hierarchy 
with  their  mutual  relations.     "  I.    It  is  not  difficult  to 


320  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

show,  in  spite  of  the  opinion  of  certain  evil-thinking 
men,  that  the  division  of  the  church  into  the  two  above- 
mentioned  classes  has  its  origin  with  the  Saviour  himself. 
Unquestionably  the  Lord  himself  founded  in  his  church  a 
special  order  of  men,  who  formed  the  hierarchy,  and 
empowered  those  men,  and  only  those,  to  make  use  of 
those  means  which  he  gave  to  the  church  for  its  purposes, 
that  is,  he  empowered  them  to  be  teachers,  ministers  of 
the  sacraments,  and  spiritual  guides,  and  in  no  way  left  it 
indiscriminately  to  all  the  behevers,  having,  on  the  con- 
trary, enjoined  them  to  obey  the  pastors."     (p.  211.) 

"  The  Protestants,  who  do  not  acknowledge  that  Christ 
established  in  the  church  a  special  priesthood,  or  hierarchy, 
affirm  that  all  the  believers,  by  force  of  the  sacrament  of 
the  baptism,  are  equally  priests  of  the  most  high  God ; 
but  as  it  is  impossible  for  all  to  perform  the  duties  of 
priesthood,  the  believers  choose  from  their  own  midst 
special  men  as  their  representatives,  whom  they  clothe 
in  the  rights  of  priesthood." 

In  the  above  quotation  it  says  that  a  large  part  of 
Christendom,  the  Protestants,  do  not  recognize  the  hier- 
archy. This  proof  is  very  important,  for  the  whole 
teaching  of  the  church  has  been  reduced  to  the  doctrine 
about  the  hierarchy.  It  turns  out  that  Christians  who 
are  not  worse  or  more  stupid  than  we  directly  deny 
according  to  Scripture  what  we  assert,  that  is,  tlie  hier- 
archy. Here  is  the  way  the  Theology  proves  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  hierarchy  by  God.  I  cite  the  following 
places  from  the  Theology,  which  are  supposed  to  prove 
the  establishment  of  the  hierarchy  by  Christ.  I  quote 
every  one  of  them,  not  in  order  to  refute  them,  for  any 
one  who  reads  them  will  see  how  useless  that  is,  but  in 
order  to  present  all  the  proofs  of  the  church  in  favour  of 
the  hierarchy. 

"(1)  As  we  read  the  Gospel,  which  contains  in  itself 
the  history  of  the  life  and  words  of  our  Saviour,  we  see : 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  321 

(a)  that  he  chose  from  amoug  his  followers  twelve  dis- 
ciples whom  he  called  apostles :  Aud  when  it  was  day, 
says  St.  Luke,  he  called  uuto  him  his  disciples :  and  of 
them  he  chose  twelve,  whom  also  he  named  apostles 
(Luke  vi.  13),  and  so  he  said  to  them:  Ye  have  not 
chosen  me,  but  I  have  chosen  you  (John  xv.  16)."  (p.  211.) 

That  is  the  first  proof.  Christ  chose  twelve  apostles. 
Apostle  means  messenger  in  Greek,  and  so  it  says  that 
Christ  chose  twelve  messengers.  If  he  had  chosen  seven- 
teen, he  would  have  sent  seventeen  messengers.  The 
Theology  adduces  that  as  a  proof  that  the  hierarchy  was 
established  by  Christ.  To  that  are  added  the  words  :  Ye 
have  not  chosen  me,  but  I  have  chosen  you.  These  words 
were  said  in  the  chapter  of  the  farewell  speech,  where 
Christ  spoke  of  his  love  for  his  disciples,  aud  have  nothing 
in  common  with  the  passages  in  connection  with  which 
they  are  quoted,  and  still  less  with  the  establisliment  of 
the  hierarchy. 

Second  proof:  "  (h)  That  to  them  alone  he  gave  the 
command  and  the  power  to  teach  all  the  nations,  to  per- 
form the  holy  sacraments  for  them  and  to  direct  the 
behevers  to  salvation  (Matt,  xxviii.  19;  xviii.  18;  Luke 
xxii.  19)." 

The  verses  are  not  cited.  Here  they  are  :  Go  ye  there- 
fore, and  teach  all  nations,  baptizing  them  in  the  name  of 
the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  aud  of  the  Holy  Ghost  (Matt, 
xxviii.  19).  Verily  I  say  unto  you.  Whatsoever  ye  shall 
bind  on  earth  shall  be  bound  in  heaven :  and  whatsoever 
ye  shall  loose  on  earth  shall  be  loosed  in  heaven  (Matt, 
xviii.  18).  And  he  took  bread  and  gave  thanks,  and  brake 
it,  and  gave  unto  them,  saying,  This  is  my  body  which  is 
given  for  you :  this  do  in  remembrance  of  me  (Luke  xxii. 
19). 

The  Theology  gives  only  the  number  of  the  verses,  but 
does  not  quote  the  passages  themselves,  knowing  that  the 
verses  do  not  confirm  the  statement  that  Christ  gave  to 


322  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

anybody  a  special  right  to  teach  the  nations.  There  is 
nothing  there  about  the  power,  and  nothing  about  the 
sacraments.  Something  is  said  about  baptizing,  but  it 
does  not  say  that  the  breaking  of  the  bread  is  a  sacrament, 
or  that  these  actions  are  left  in  charge  of  the  hierarchy. 
One  cannot  help  observing  the  strange  phenomenon  that 
continually  exactly  the  same  obscure  texts  are  chosen  to 
prove  all  kinds  of  theses :  such  are  the  texts  Matt,  xxviii. 
19,  Luke  xxii.  19,  John  xx.  23,  and  several  others.  These 
texts  are  repeated  a  hundred  times.  On  them  is  based 
the  Trinity,  and  the  divinity  of  Christ,  and  the  redemp- 
tion, and  the  -sacraments,  and  the  hierarchy.  That  is  all 
about  the  second  proof. 

Third  proof :  "  (c)  That  he  transferred  the  power  to  the 
holy  apostles  just  as  he  received  it  from  the  Father: 
All  power  is  given  unto  me  .  .  . ;  go  ye  therefore,  and 
teach  all  nations,  baptizing  tliem  in  the  name  of  the 
Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost  (Matt. 
xxviii.  18,  19);  as  my  father  hath  sent  me,  even  so  send 
I  you.  And  when  he  had  said  this,  he  breathed  on  them, 
and  saith  unto  them,  Receive  ye  the  Holy  Ghost :  whose 
soever  sins  ye  remit,  they  are  remitted  unto  them ;  and 
whose  soever  sins  ye  retain,  they  are  retained  (John  xx. 
21-23)."     (p.  212.) 

In  order  to  confirm  the  power  which  is  supposed  to  be 
transferred,  the  texts  are  tampered  with  here.  The  text 
is  quoted  as,  "  All  power  is  given  unto  me  .  .  . ;  go  ye," 
and  so  forth.  The  real  text  runs  like  this :  «  All  power 
is  given  unto  me  in  heaven  and  in  earth.  (Period.)  Go 
ye  therefore,  and  teach  all  nations."  Considering  the 
period,  it  cannot  be  said  that  he  gave  the  power;  but 
with  the  several  dots  and  by  omitting  "  in  heaven,"  which 
cannot  refer  to  the  disciples,  it  is  possible  to  interpret  it 
as  that  he  gave  the  power  to  the  disciples.  The  text 
from  John  does  not  say  anything  about  the  hierarchy 
or  about  the  power;  all  it  says  is  that  Christ  gave  the 


CEITIQUE    OF    DOCiMATIC    THEOLOGY  323 

Holy  Ghost  to  his  disciples  and  commanded  them  to  teach 
men,  that  is  to  deliver  them  from  sin,  as  it  is  correctly 
translated ;  but  even  if  it  be  translated  by  "  remit  the 
sins,"  the  hierarchy  does  not  in  any  way  result  from  the 
remission  uf  the  sins. 

Fourth  proof :  "  (d)  That  to  these  twelve  he  immedi- 
ately added  seventy  definite  disciples,  whom  he  sent  out 
on  the  same  great  work.     (Luke  x.  1,  et  seq.)"     (p.  212.) 

Tiie  fact  that  Christ  sent  out,  at  first  twelve  messengers, 
and  then  seventy  more  men,  whom  he  ordered,  like  pil- 
grims, without  a  supply  of  clothing,  without  money,  to 
visit  the  cities  and  villages,  is  regarded  as  a  proof  that  the 
ruling  liierarchy  of  the  present  day  derives  its  origin  by 
heredity  from  Christ.  Those  are  all  the  proofs  that 
Christ  himself  established  the  hierarchy.  Everything 
that  could  possibly  be  adduced,  has  been  adduced.  In  the 
opinion  of  the  Theology,  the  quotations  with  their  tam- 
pered texts  confirm  the  establishment  of  the  hierarchy. 
No  other  proofs  could  be  found.  After  that  follow  proofs 
that  later  tliis  power  was  transferred  from  the  apostles  to 
the  fathers  of  the  church,  and  then  to  the  hierarchy 
which  came  after  them.  This  is  the  way  the  transmission 
is  proved : 

"  (e)  That  transmitting  liis  heavenly  message  to  the 
twelve  disciples,  he  wanted  it  to  pass  from  them  directly 
to  their  successors,  and  from  these,  passing  from  gener- 
ation to  generation,  to  be  kept  in  the  world  to  the  end  of 
the  world  itself.  For,  when  he  said  to  the  apostles.  Go 
ye  into  all  the  world,  and  preach  the  gospel  to  every 
creature  (Mark  xvi.  15),  he  immediately  added,  I  am  with 
you  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world  (Matt,  xxviii. 
20).  Consequently  he,  in  the  person  of  the  apostles,  sent 
out  for  the  same  work  and  encouraged  by  his  presence  all 
their  future  successors,  and  in  the  hteral  sense  gave  the 
church  not  only  apostles,  prophets,  and  evangelists,  but 
also  pastors  and  teachers  (Eph.  iv.  11)."     (p.  212.) 


324  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

Here  again  the  texts  are  changed  in  order  to  bring  for- 
ward a  specious  proof.  It  does  not  follow  from  anything 
that  after  the  words,  "  Preach  the  gospel  to  every  crea- 
ture," he  said  "  immediately  "  afterward,  "  I  am  with  you 
alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world."  Nor  can  it  in 
any  way  be  said  that  one  passage  follows  immediately 
after  the  other,  since  one  thing  is  said  by  one  evangel- 
ist, Mark,  wliile  the  other  is  said  by  Matthew.  Mark 
says :  "  Go  into  all  the  world,  and  preach  the  gospel," 
which  has  no  meaning  of  any  transmission ;  but  the 
words,  "  I  am  with  you  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the 
world.  Amen,"  are  the  concluding  words  of  the  Gospel  of 
Matthew,  and  therefore  can  by  no  means  signify  that  he 
wanted  to  transmit  the  power  to  them.  But  even  if  that 
meant  what  the  Theology  wants  it  to  mean,  there  is 
nothing  to  warrant  the  assertion  that  he  encouraged  with 
his  presence  all  their  future  successors.  That  cannot  be 
argued  out  of  anything. 

Here  is  the  second  proof  of  the  succession : 

"(/)  Finally,  that,  having  in  this  manner  clothed  his 
apostles  with  divine  power,  he,  on  the  other  hand,  very 
clearly  and  with  terrible  curses  compelled  all  men  and 
the  future  Christians  to  receive  the  teaching  and  the 
sacraments  from  the  future  apostles,  and  to  obey  their 
words :  He  that  heareth  you,  heareth  me ;  and  he  that 
despiseth  you,  despiseth  me ;  and  he  that  despiseth  me, 
despiseth  him  that  sent  me  (Luke  x.  16);  Go  ye  into  all 
the  world,  and  preach  the  gospel  to  every  creature.  He 
that  believeth  and  is  baptized  shall  be  saved ;  but  he  that 
believeth  not  shall  be  damned  (Mark  xvi.  15,  16;  cf. 
Matt.  X.  14;  xviii.   15-19)."     (p.  212.) 

I  do  not  leave  out  a  single  word.  And  that  is  given 
out  as  a  proof  not  only  of  the  establishment  of  the  hier- 
archy, but  also  of  the  succession,  and  it  says : 

"  And  that  is  why,  even  when  the  Lord  ascended  to 
heaven,  Matthias  was,  by  his  indication,  added  to  the 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  325 

eleven  apostles,  iu  the  place  of  Judas  (Acts  i.  26);  and 
only  by  the  voice  of  the  Holy  Ghost  were  Barnabas 
and  Saul  separated  for  the  work  whereunto  our  Redeemer 
had  called  them  (Acts  xiii.  2 ;  cf.  ix.  15)."     (p.  212.) 

This  last  proof,  the  meaning  of  which  I  absolutely  fail 
to  make  out,  contains  the  first  part  of  the  proofs  as  to 
why  the  hierarchy  is  to  be  considered  as  founded  by 
Christ. 

After  that  follow  proofs  from  the  Acts  and  the  Epistles. 
One  would  think  that  here  it  would  be  easier  to  tind  texts 
which  might  confirm  the  divine  origin  of  the  hierarchy, 
but  again  the  same  takes  place.  It  turns  out  that  in  all 
the  texts,  quoted  and  not  quoted,  there  is  nowhere  a  word 
about  those  rights  (as  though  it  were  a  legal  establish- 
ment) which  the  Theology  proclaims  from  the  very  first 
words. 

"(2)  Still  more  clearly  is  this  intention  of  the  Lord 
seen  in  the  actions  of  the  apostles  who  were  guided  by 
his  Spirit.  These  actions  are  of  two  kinds  and  both 
equally  refer  to  the  confirmation  of  the  truth  under  dis- 
cussion. The  actions  of  the  first  kind  are  the  following : 
{a)  the  holy  apostles  constantly  asserted  their  right  and 
carried  out  the  obligations  which  the  Lord  had  enjoined 
on  them  (Acts  v.  42 ;  vi.  1-5  ;  1  Cor.  iv.  1  ;  v.  4-5 ;  ix. 
16),  in  spite  of  all  obstacles  on  the  part  of  the  enemies 
who  tried  to  take  that  divine  power  from  them  (Acts 
iv.  19;  V.  28-29)."     (pp.  212  and  213.) 

These  references  to  the  apostles  and  especially  to  the 
Acts  are  remarkable.  The  author  does  not  write  them 
out,  because  he  knows  that,  if  auything  at  all  is  to  be 
deduced  from  them,  it  is  the  very  opposite  of  what  he  is 
trying  to  prove.  Every  passage  where  Christ's  disciples 
preach  his  teaching  is  adduced  as  a  proof  that  the  hier- 
archy was  established;  for  example,  in  Acts  iv.  19,  Peter 
and  John  said  :  "  Whether  it  be  right  iu  the  sight  of 
God  to  hearken  unto  you  more  than  unto  God,  judge  ye." 


326  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

The  other  references  are  of  the  same  kind.  Thus  it  goes 
on  for  two  pages,  from  which  it  is  clear,  to  any  one  who 
has  read  even  a  short  Seminary  history  of  the  church, 
that  no  ODe  at  any  time,  during  the  first  centuries  of 
Christianity,  ascribed  any  especial  rights  or  power  to  him- 
self. Elders  (presbyters,  bishops,  overseers)  were  ap- 
pointed, and  all  those  appellations  meant  one  and  the 
same  thing,  and  were  a  human  institution,  which  was 
diversified  according  to  men  and  places.  All  that  is 
evident  from  the  texts  which  are  quoted  by  the  Theology 
itself. 

After  that  follows  the  third  part  of  the  proofs,  in  which 
it  says  directly  in  the  name  of  the  holy  fathers  that  this 
power  was  given  to  the  hierarchy  by  Christ  himself.  But 
here  we  get  the  proofs  only  of  the  fact  that  those  men 
who  ascribed  the  power  to  themselves  asserted  quite 
arbitrarily  that  the  power  had  passed  to  them  from  God, 
that  is,  what  now  our,  and  any  other,  hierarchy  asserts  at 
the  present  time.     Here  it  says  : 

"  (b)  The  pastors,  who  formed  that  special  class,  ahvays 
deduced  their  power  from  Jesus  Christ  himself  and  called 
themselves  the  successors  of  the  apostles  and  the  repre- 
sentatives in  the  church  of  the  Saviour  himself.  Here, 
for  example,  are  the  words  of  Clement  of  Rome  :  '  Having 
received  a  full  foreknowledge,  the  apostles  appointed  the 
above-mentioned  men  (that  is,  bishops  and  deacons)  and 
at  the  same  time  handed  down  the  rule  that  when  they 
deceased  other  experienced  men  should  take  up  their  min- 
istry.' St.  Ignatius  Theophorus  :  '  Bishops  are  appointed 
in  all  the  corners  of  the  world,  by  the  will  of  Jesus  Christ.' 
St.  Ireuteus :  '  We  can  name  those  whom  the  apostles 
have  placed  as  bishops  and  their  successors  over  the 
churches  down  to  our  time,  but  they  taught  nothing  of 
the  kind  and  knew  nothing  of  what  the  heretics  have 
invented.  For,  if  the  apostles  knew  the  secrets,  which 
they  revealed  only  to  the  perfect,  and  to  no  other,  they 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  327 

80  much  the  more  certainly  revealed  them  to  those  to 
whom  they  entrusted  the  churches  themselves :  for  the 
apostles  wished  that  those  whom  they  left  as  their  suc- 
cessors, transmitting  to  them  their  own  ministration  of 
the  teaching,  should  be  quite  perfect  and  without  a 
blemish  in  every  respect.'  St.  Cyprian :  '  We  are  the 
successors  of  the  apostles,  ruling  tlie  church  of  God  by 
the  same  power.'  St.  Ambrose  :  '  The  bishop  represents 
in  liis  person  Jesus  Christ  and  is  the  vicegerent  of  the 
Lord.'  St.  Jerome :  '  With  us  the  place  of  the  apostles  is 
occupied  by  the  bishops.'"     (pp.  214  and  215.) 

Having  armed  itself  with  these  proofs,  that  is,  with  the 
barren  assertions  of  those  men  who  appropriated  to  them- 
selves the  divine  power,  that  this  power  had  been  trans- 
ferred to  them  from  God,  the  Theology  now  gives  the 
direct  definition  of  the  church,  a  part  of  which  (namely, 
the  words  of  Gregory  the  Divine)  I  have  quoted  before. 
After  that  it  says  (from  p.  217-229)  that  there  are  three 
degrees  of  the  ecclesiastic  hierarchy :  the  episcopal,  the 
presbyteral,  and  the  diacoual;  but,  it  is  necessary  to 
remark  that  there  are  no  more  of  them.  The  utterances 
of  the  fathers  of  the  church  confirm  that : 

"  Clement  of  Alexandria :  '  The  degrees  of  bishops, 
presbyters,  and  deacons,  which  exist  in  the  church,  are, 
in  my  opinion,  the  representation  of  the  angelic  order.' 
Origen :  '  Paul  speaks  to  the  rulers  and  chiefs  of  the 
churches,  that  is,  to  those  who  judge  the  people  who  are 
in  the  church,  namely,  to  the  bishops,  presbyters,  and 
deacons.'  Eusebius  of  Cffisaria :  '  Three  orders  :  the  first 
of  the  presiding  officers,  the  second  of  the  presbyters,  the 
third  of  the  deacons.'"     (p.  223.) 

174.  There  is  a  detailed  description  of  the  different 
orders  of  the  spiritual  persons  among  themselves  and  in 
relation  to  their  flocks. 

"  The  bishop  is  the  chief  overseer  in  his  ovtvl  particular 
church  (Acts  xx.  28  ;  cf.  Epistle  of  the  Eastern  Patriarch? 


328  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

about  the  Orthodox  faith,  section  10).     First  of  all  he  has 
the  power  over  the  hierarchy  under  his  rule  and  over  the 
clergy.     All  priests  and  servants  of  the  church  are  obliged 
to  obey  his  injunctions,  and  without  his  permission  nothing 
is  done  in  the  church ;  all  are  subject  to  his  surveillance 
and  judgment  (1  Tim.  v.  19),  in  consequence  of  which  he 
may  subject  them  to  various  punishments.     In  addition 
to  the  clergy,  the  whole  flock  which  is  entrusted  to  his 
care  is  subject  to  the  spiritual  power  of  the  bishop.     He 
is   under   obligation  to  watch  over  the  execution  in  his 
eparchy  of  the  divine  laws  and  church  commandments. 
He   has   more  especially  and  preeminently  the  right  to 
bind  and  loose,  according  to  the  rules  of  the  holy  apostles, 
the  holy  councils,  and  according  to  the  unanimous  testi- 
mony of  the  ancient  teachers  of  the  church.     For  that 
reason  the  apostles  so  forcibly  impressed  all  the  believers 
with  the  necessity  of  obeying  the  bishops.     The  presby- 
ters have  also  power  to  bind  and  loose,  and  in  general  to 
feed  the  flock  of  God  which  is  entrusted  to  them  (1  Peter 
V.  1,  2),  but  this  power  they  receive  from  their  archpastor 
by  means  of  the  sacramental  ordination.     Some  chosen 
ones  are,  by  the  will  of  the  bishop,  admitted,  in  general 
to  bear  with  him  the  burden  of  the  church  government 
and  even  form  with  him  for  that  purpose  a  permanent 
council.     But,  according  to  an  old  expression,  they  only 
serve  in  the  place  of  the  bishop's  eyes  and  in  themselves, 
without  his  consent,  can  do  nothing.     But  the  deacons 
have  not  received  from  the  Lord  the  right  to  bind  and 
loose,  and   so  in   themselves  do  not  have  any  spiritual 
power  over  the  believers.     But  the  deacons  may  be  the 
eye  and  the  ear  of  the  bishops  and  presbyters,   as  also 
the  hands  of  the  presiding  officers.  Math  their  consent, 
for  the  purpose  of  performing  ecclesiastic  duties. 

"  After  all  which  has  been  said,  we  find  quite  com- 
prehensible the  high  names  and  expressions  which  are 
applied  to  the  bishops,  such  as  that  they  are  alone,  in  the 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  329 

strict  sense,  the  successors  of  the  apostles,  that  the  church 
is  resting  Hruily  on  its  bishops,  as  on  supports ;  that  a 
bishop  is  '  a  living  image  of  God  on  earth,  and,  by  force  of 
the  sacramental  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  a  prolific  source 
of  all  the  sacraments  of  the  church,  by  means  of  which  he 
procures  salvation ;  and  so  he  is  as  necessary  for  the 
church  as  breathing  is  f^^r  man,  as  the  sun  is  for  the  world  ' 
(Epistle  of  the  Eastern  Patriarchs,  Section  10);  that  in 
the  bishops  is  the  centre  of  the  believers  who  belong  to 
his  eparchy ;  that  he  is  even  the  particular  head  of  his 
spiritual  realm  ;  that,  finally,  as  Cyprian  says,  '  the  bishop 
is  in  the  church,  and  the  church  (which  is  subject  to 
him)  is  in  the  bishop,  and  that  he  who  is  not  in  com- 
nmnion  with  the  bishop  is  not  in  the  church.' "  (pp. 
227-229.) 

The  pastors  of  various  degrees,  united  among  them- 
selves, decide,  and  the  people  have  to  obey,  and  all  that 
which  is  called  tiie  church  not  merely  as  an  ornament  of 
speech,  but  in  reality,  that  is,  that  organ  which  expresses 
the  faith  which  men  must  follow,  —  that  church  is  the 
bishops. 

175.  This  article  shows  that  the  church  is  the  bishops, 
and  that  the  higher  power  above  them  is  an  assembly  of 
all  the  bishops,  which  is  called  a  council,  that  is,  of 
several  bishops.  In  this  article  there  is  a  very  detailed 
account,  such  as  is  given  in  the  Statute  about  the  justices 
of  the  peace,  about  the  relations  of  all  these  persons 
among  themselves : 

"  From  this  may  be  seen,  without  any  new  proofs,  that 
the  right  to  sit  in  councils,  both  local  and  oecumenical, 
and  the  right  to  pass  on  ecclesiastical  matters  belong 
exclusively  to  the  bishops  as  the  heads  of  the  separate 
churches;  and  the  presbyters,  who  in  everything  depend 
on  their  local  archpastors,  may  be  admitted  to  the  coun- 
cils only  by  their  consent,  and  then  only  as  counsellors,  or 
assistants,  or  their  pleuipotentiaries,  and  may  occupy  only 


330  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

the  second  place.  Even  so  may  be  admitted  the  deacons, 
who  must  stand  before  the  face  of  the  bishops.  For  this 
reason  the  councils  were  by  the  holy  fathers  of  the  church 
generally  called  assemblies  of  the  bishops.  The  Second 
(Ecumenical  Council  called  the  Symbol  of  Faith  which 
was  composed  at  the  first  council,  'the  faith  of  318  holy 
fathers '  (for  that  was  the  number  of  bishops  present  at 
that  council) ;  the  council  in  Trullo  called  the  definitions 
of  faith  of  all  the  previous  oecumenical  councils  '  profes- 
sion or  faith  of  the  holy  fathers,  the  bishops,  according  to 
the  number  of  those  who  met  at  these  councils.'  "  (p. 
231.) 

Then  comes  Art.  176,  in  which  we  have  an  exposition 
•  of  Christ's  being  the  head  of  the  church.  That  is  apparent 
(1)  from  the  fact  that  Christ  before  the  ascension  said,  not 
to  the  church  but  to  his  disciples,  "  I  am  with  you  to  the 
end  of  the  world.  Amen."  In  the  Theology,  the  following 
words  are  added  to  that :  "  and  with  all  your  future 
successors,"  and  that  is  taken  as  a  proof  that  all  those 
who  call  themselves  the  interpreters  of  Christ  regard 
themselves  as  his  successors. 

"  (2)  From  this  fact  in  particular  that,  although  he 
entrusted  the  power  of  teaching  to  the  apostles  and  their 
successors,  he  told  them  to  call  him  only  the  supreme 
teacher,  who  invisibly,  through  them,  taught  the  believers 
(Matt,  xxiii.  10),  and  so  he  said:  He  that  heareth  you 
heareth  me;  and  he  that  despiseth  you  despiseth  me 
(Luke  X.  16).".    (p.  232.) 

This  passage  with  its  references  is  striking.  I  thought 
that  nothing  in  the  Theology  would  startle  me,  but  the 
boldness  with  which  this  verse  is  quoted,  and  with  which 
an  opposite  significance  is  given  to  it,  is  staggering.  Here 
is  the  verse,  or,  rather,  the  whole  passage :  But  be  not  ye 
called  Kabbi :  for  one  is  your  Master,  even  Christ ;  and 
all  ye  are  brethren.  And  call  no  man  your  father  upon 
the  earth:  for  one  is  your  Father,  which  is  in  heaven. 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    TUEOLOGY  331 

Neither  be  ye  called   masters :    for  one  is  your  Master, 
even  Christ  (Matt,  xxiii.  8-10). 

This  very  verse,  these  words,  which  are  said  directly 
agaiust  those  who  call  themselves  teachers,  fathers,  and 
masters,  —  this  verse  is  connected  with  the  verse  (Luke 
X.  16),  which  has  absolutely  nothing  in  common  with  the 
first,  and  is  adduced  as  a  proof  that  those  very  teachers, 
who  call  themselves  so  against  the  command  of  Christ, 
have  Christ  as  their  head.  After  that  follow  proofs  tliat 
(Art.  177)  the  church  is  One,  (179)  Holy,  (180)  Catholic 
and  Universal,  and  (181)  Apostolic. 

In  Division  III.,  about  the  Universal  Church,  it  says: 

"  III.  The  special  privilege  of  the  Catholic,  or  Universal, 
Church  consists  in  this,  that  in  matters  of  faith  '  it  cannot 
err  in  any  way,  nor  deceive,  nor  be  deceived ;  but,  like 
Divine  Scripture,  it  is  infallible  and  has  eternal  dignity ' 
(Epistle  of  the  Eastern  Patriarchs,  Section  12),  a  privilege 
of  wliich  enough  has  been  said  by  us  in  the  proper  place." 

The  moral  apphcation  of  this  dogma  for  the  first  time 
results  directly  from  the  dogma.  The  application  bf  the 
dogma  consists  in  obeying  the  church. 

"  (1)  The  Lord  Jesus  founded  his  church  that  it  might 
regenerate  men  and  educate  them  for  eternal  life ;  and 
so  our  relation  to  it  has  to  be  that  of  children  to  their 
mother ;  we  are  obliged  to  love  the  church  of  Christ  as 
our  spiritual  mother  and  to  obey  it  in  everything  as  our 
spiritual  mother.  In  particular  our  Lord  Jesus :  (2)  en- 
joined the  church  to  keep  and  teach  to  men  its  divine 
doctrine ;  it  is  our  duty  to  receive  this  teaching  from  the 
mouth  of  the  God-given  church,  and  to  understand  it 
precisely  as  the  church,  which  is  instructed  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,  understands  it ;  (3)  he  entrusted  to  the  church  the 
performance  of  mysteries  and,  in  general,  sacraments  for 
the  sanctification  of  men ;  it  is  our  duty  in  awe  to  make 
use  of  the  saving  mysteries  and  all  the  other  sacraments, 
which  it  performs  over  us ;  (4)  he  entrusted  the  church 


332  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

with  the  guidance  of  men  and  with  confirming  them  in 
their  godly  lives ;  it  is  our  duty  without  murmuring  to 
submit  to  the  inspiration  of  such  a  guide  and  holily 
to  execute  all  the  commands  of  the  church ;  (5)  he  him- 
self established  the  hierarchy  and  priestly  order  in  the 
church,  pointed  out  the  difference  between  the  flock 
and  the  pastors,  and  showed  each  a  definite  place  and 
service ;  it  is  the  duty  of  all  the  members  of  the  church, 
of  the  pastors  and  the  flock,  to  be  that  which  they  are 
called  to  be,  and  to  keep  well  in  mind  that  we  have  gifts 
differing  according  to  the  grace  that  is  given  to  us  (Eom. 
xii.  6),  and  that  to  every  one  of  us  is  given  grace  accord- 
ing to  the  measure  of  the  gift  of  Christ  (Eph.  iv.  7)." 
(p.  246.) 

So  that  is  what  the  church  is  as  an  establishment,  as  a 
keeper  and  announcer  of  truths,  of  dogmas  !  That  on 
which  the  whole  Theology  is  based  is  a  self-constituted 
hierarchy  and,  in  distinction  from  all  others,  a  hierarchy 
which  regards  itself  alone  as  holy  and  infallible  and  as 
being-  the  only  one  that  has  the  right  to  preach  the  divine 
revelation.  Thus  the  whole  doctrine  of  the  church,  as 
the  Theology  teaches  it,  is  all  based  on  establishing  the 
conception  of  the  church  as  the  only  true  keeper  of 
divine  truth,  in  order  to  substitute  for  this  conception 
that  of  a  certain,  definite  hierarchy,  that  is,  to  connect  a 
human  institution,  the  outgrowth  of  pride,  malice,  and 
hatred,  which  utters  dogmas  and  instructs  the  flock  only 
in  that  teaching  which  it  alone  regards  as  true,  with  the 
conception  of  the  assembly  of  all  believers  who  have  in- 
visibly at  their  head  Christ  himself,  —  the  mystical  body 
of  Christ.  To  that  the  whole  teaching  of  the  Theology 
reduces  itself. 

This  teaching  asserts  that  the  only,  true  church,  —  the 
body  of  Christ,  is  it  alone.  The  train  of  thought  is  as 
follows :  Having  collected  the  disciples,  God  revealed  the 
trutli  to  them  and  promised  to  be  with  them.     That  truth 


CKITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  333 

is  complete  and  divine.  The  trntli  which  we  preach  is 
the  same  truth.  Even  leaving  out  of  discussion  the  fact 
that  for  every  man  who  has  read  Holy  Scripture  and  who 
has  seen  the  arguments  wliich  the  Theology  adduces  in 
proof,  it  is  evident  that  Christ  never  established  any  hier- 
archy, any  church,  in  the  sense  in  which  the  Theology 
understands  it ;  leaving  out  of  consideration  that  for  every 
one  who  reads  history  it  is  evident  that  many  men  have 
imagined  themselves  to  be  such  churches,  while  they  con- 
tended with  one  another  and  did  one  another  harm, — 
there  involuntarily  rises  the  question :  on  what  grounds 
does  our  hierarchy  consider  itself  to  be  the  true  one,  and 
the  other  hierarchies  and  assemblies  not  to  be  true  ? 
Why  is  the  Nicene  symbol  an  expression  of  the  true,  holy 
church,  and  why  not  the  Arian  symbol,  w^hich  our  hier- 
archy has  been  contending  against,  for  were  not  the 
bishops,  partisans  of  Arius,  as  much  ordained  by  succes- 
sion from  the  apostles  as  the  partisans  of  the  Nicene 
symbol  ?  And  if  this  ordainment  does  not  save  men  from 
error,  why  is  our  church  the  keeper  of  truth,  and  not  of 
untruth  ?  The  Theology  does  not  even  make  an  attempt 
at  answering  this,  for  by  its  doctrine  it  cannot  give  any 
answer,  since  subjects  that  are  arbitrarily  passed  upon 
cannot  be  proved,  and  so  the  hierarchy  says  only  that  it 
is  right  because  it  is  holy  and  infallible,  and  it  is  holy  and 
infalHble,  because  it  is  a  follower  of  the  hierarchy  which 
has  acknowledged  the  Nicene  symbol.  But  why  is  the 
hierarchy  which  has  acknowledged  the  Nicene  symbol 
the  true  one  ?  To  that  there  is,  and  there  can  be,  no 
answer,  so  that  the  recognition  of  the  hierarchy,  which 
calls  itself  the  true,  holy,  only,  universal  and  apostolic 
church,  is  only  an  expression  of  a  demand  that  faith 
should  be  put  in  it,  an  assertion  like  the  one  made  by  a 
man  w^ho  says,  "  Upon  my  word,  I  am  right."  But  this 
assertion  is  particularly  weakened  by  the  fact  that  every 
assertion  of  the  hierarchy  about  being  holy  is  always  due 


334  CKITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

to  this,  that  another  hierarchy,  which  on  some  point  dis- 
agrees with  it,  says  precisely  the  opposite  and  asserts  that 
it  is  right  and  to  the  words, "  It  is  permitted  to  us  and  to 
the  Holy  Ghost,"  replies  that  the  Holy  Ghost  lives  in  it, 
—  something  like  what  happens  when  two  men  swear, 
denying  each  other. 

All  the  theologians,  no  matter  how  much  they  may  try 
to  conceal  it,  speak  and  do  nothing  else.  The  church  — 
the  union  of  all  believers,  the  body  of  Christ  —  is  only 
an  adornment  of  speech,  in  order  to  add  importance  to  a 
human  institution,  the  hierarchy  and  its  assumed  succes- 
sion, upon  which  everything  is  built  up.  Eemarkable 
and  instructive  in  this  respect  are  the  attempts  of  the 
modern  theologians,  of  Vinet  and  his  followers,  of  Khom- 
yakov  and  his  scions,  to  find  new  supports  for  the  teach- 
ing about  the  church,  and  to  build  up  the  definition  of  the 
church  not  on  the  hierarchy,  but  on  the  whole  assembly 
of  the  believers,  on  the  flock.  These  new  theologians, 
without  noticing  it  themselves,  in  their  attempts  to  make 
stable  the  tree  which  is  planted  without  roots,  make  it 
fall  entirely.  These  theologians  deny  the  hierarchy  and 
prove  the  falseness  of  that  foundation,  and  they  think  that 
they  are  giving  it  a  different  foundation.  But,  unfortu- 
nately, this  other  foundation  is  nothing  but  that  sophism 
of  theology,  under  which  it  tries  to  conceal  the  crudity  of 
its  doctrine  about  the  church  being  the  hierarchy.  That 
sophism  the  new  theologians  take  for  a  foundation  and 
they  completely  overthrow  the  doctrine  of  the  church, 
while  they  themselves  are  left  with  a  most  palpable 
sophism,  but  without  a  foundation. 

Their  error  is  like  this  :  The  church  has  received  among 
believers  two  main  meanings,  —  one,  that  the  church  is  a 
human,  temporal  institution,  and  the  other,  that  the 
church  is  the  totality  of  men  living  and  dead,  who  are 
united  by  one  true  faith.  The  first  is  a  definite  historical 
phenomenon :    an  assemblage  of  men  subject  to  certain 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  335 

rules  and  regulations,  aud  one  from  which  statutes  may 
issue.  "Whether  I  speak  of  the  Catholic  Church  of  such  and 
such  a  year,  or  of  the  Roman,  or  Greek  Orthodox  Church, 
I  am  speaking  of  certain  people,  —  the  Pope,  patriarchs, 
bishops,  —  who  are  organized  in  a  certain  manner  and 
who  in  a  certain  way  direct  their  flocks.  The  second  is 
an  abstract  idea,  and  if  I  speak  of  the  church  in  this 
sense,  it  is  evident  that  attributes  of  time  and  place  can- 
not be  its  definitions,  and  under  no  circumstance  can  there 
be  definite  decrees,  expressed  in  definite  words.  The  only 
definition  of  such  a  church,  as  the  carrier  of  divine  truth, 
is  a  correspondence  with  what  is  the  divine  truth. 

The  equating  of  these  two  conceptions  to  each  other, 
and  the  substitution  of  one  for  the  other,  has  always 
formed  a  problem  of  all  Christian  confessions  of  faith. 
An  assemblage  of  people,  wishing  to  convince  others  that 
it  possesses  the  absolute  truth,  asserts  that  it  is  holy  and 
infallible.  Its  holiness  and  infallibility  it  builds  on  two 
foundations :  on  the  manifestations  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
which  find  their  expression  in  the  holiness  of  the  members 
of  that  community  and  then  in  miracles,  and  on  the 
legitimate  succession  of  the  teachership,  which  proceeds 
from  Christ. 

The  first  foundation  does  not  stand  criticism :  holiness 
cannot  be  measured  or  proved  ;  miracles  are  detected  and 
proved  deceptions,  aud  so  miracles  cannot  be  adduced  as 
proofs,  so  there  is  left  but  one  proof,  the  correct  suc- 
cession of  the  hierarchy.  That,  too,  cannot  be  proved, 
but  equally  it  cannot  be  refuted,  aud  so  all  the  churches 
hold  themselves  on  that  foundation  ;  on  that  argument 
alone  do  the  churches  at  the  present  time  hold  them- 
selves, and  it  is  the  only  one  on  which  they  can  hold 
themselves.  If  a  Cathohc,  an  Orthodox,  an  Old  Cere- 
monialist,  affirm  that  they  have  the  truth,  they  can  incon- 
trovertibly  base  their  assertions  only  on  the  infallibility 
of  the  succession  of  the  keepers  of  the  Tradition.     The 


336  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

Catholic  Church  recognizes  the  Pope  as  the  head  of  the 
hierarchy,  and  in  its  development  inevitably  had  to 
acknowledge  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope.  The  Greek 
Church  could  fail  to  recognize  the  Pope,  but  in  not  recog- 
nizing the  necessity  of  that  supreme  member  of  the 
hierarchy,  it  could  not  help  but  recognize  the  infallibihty 
of  the  hierarchy  itself ;  even  so  the  Protestant  Church,  in 
failing  to  recognize  Catholicism  during  its  decadence, 
could  not  help  but  recoguize  the  infallibility  of  that  hier- 
archy whose  dogmas  it  recognizes,  for  without  the  infalli- 
bihty of  the  succession  of  the  keepers  of  the  Tradition  it 
would  have  no  foundation  for  the  assertion  of  its  truth. 

All  the  churches  maintain  themselves  only  by  recog- 
nizing the  infalhbility  of  that  hierarchy  which  they 
accept.  You  may  not  agree  in  saying  that  such  and 
such  a  hierarchy  is  the  only  correct  one,  but  when  a  man 
says  that  he  accepts  as  true  the  hierarchy  whose  dogmas 
he  accepts,  you  cannot  prove  to  him  the  incorrectness  of 
his  dogmas.  That  is  the  only  indestructible  foundation, 
and  so  all  the  churches  cling  to  it.  Now,  the  new  theo- 
logians destroy  this  only  foundation,  tliinking  that  they 
are  substituting  a  better  one  for  it.  The  new  theologians 
say  that  divine  truth  is  kept,  not  by  the  infallibility  of  the 
hierarchy,  but  in  the  totality  of  all  believers  who  are 
united  in  love,  and  that  only  to  men  who  are  united  in 
love  is  divine  truth  given,  and  that  such  a  church  is 
defined  solely  by  faith  and  oneness  in  love  and  in  con- 
cord. This  reflection  is  good  in  itself,  but,  unfortunately, 
from  it  cannot  be  deduced  a  single  one  of  the  dogmas 
which  the  theologians  profess. 

The  theologians  forget  that,  in  order  to  recognize  a  cer- 
tain dogma,  it  was  necessary  to  recognize  Tradition  to  be 
holy  and  definitely  expressed  in  the  decrees  of  the  infalli- 
ble hierarchy.  But  by  rejecting  the  infallibility  of  the 
hierarchy,  it  is  impossible  to  affirm  anything,  and  there  is 
not  a  single  proposition  of  the  church  which  could  unite 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  337 

all  the  believers.  The  affirmation  of  these  theologians 
that  they  recognize  those  decrees  which  express  the  faith 
of  all  undivided  Christians  and  reject  all  the  arbitrary- 
decrees  of  the  separate  Christians  is  quite  incorrect,  be- 
cause there  has  never  existed  such  a  complete  oneness  of 
the  Christians.  Side  by  side  with  the  Nicene  symbol, 
there  was  an  Arian  symbol,  and  the  Niceue  symbol  was 
not  accepted  by  all,  but  only  Ijy  one  part  of  the  hierarchy, 
and  other  Christians  recoguized  that  symbol  ouly  because 
they  recognized  the  infallibility  of  the  hierarchy  which 
expressed  it,  saying,  "  It  pleased  us  and  the  Holy  Ghost." 
But  there  has  never  been  a  time  when  all  the  Christians 
agreed  on  anything,  and  the  councils  were  assembled  for 
the  very  purpose  of  getting  in  some  manner  away  from  the 
controversies  about  the  dogmas,  which  divided  the  Chris- 
tians. 

Thus  the  oneness  in  love  has,  in  the  first  place,  never 
existed,  and,  in  the  second  place,  this  oneness  in  love,  by 
its  very  essence,  cannot  be  expressed  or  defined  in  any 
way.  The  new  theologians  affirm  that  by  church  they 
understand  the  union  of  all  the  believers,  the  body  of 
Christ,  and  by  no  means  the  infallible  hierarchy  and  a 
human  institution ;  but  the  moment  they  touch  on  mat- 
ters of  the  church,  it  becomes  evident  that  by  church 
they  understand,  and  must  of  necessity  understand,  a 
human  institution.  The  cares  of  all  these  theologians, 
beginning  with  Luther,  about  the  relation  of  church  and 
state,  prove  conclusively  that  these  theologians  understand 
by  church  a  still  more  debased  human  institution  than 
is  understood  by  the  Catholics  or  the  Orthodox.  The 
church  theologians  are  more  consistent  in  their  dis- 
cussions. The  church,  according  to  their  doctrine,  is  the 
bishops  and  the  Pope ;  thus  they  speak,  and  so  it  is.  The 
Pope  and  the  bishops  must,  according  to  their  teaching, 
stand  at  the  head  of  all  worldly  institutions,  and  there 
can  be  no  question  about  the  relation  of  the  church  to  the 


338  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

state.  The  church  is  always  the  head  of  everything. 
Among  the  Protestants  there  appears,  in  spite  of  the 
apparently  high  significance  which  they  ascribe  to  the 
church,  the  question  about  the  relations  of  church  and 
state.  They  are  all  busy  now  separating  or  freeing  the 
church  from  the  oppression  of  the  state,  and  all  of  them 
complain  of  the  wretched  condition  of  divine  truth  and  of 
Christ  at  its  head,  who  is  in  captivity  under  Bismarck, 
Gambetta,  and  so  forth,  but  they  forget  that  if  the  state 
can  exert  any  influence  on  the  church,  it  is  evident  that, 
in  speaking  of  the  church,  we  are  speaking  not  of  the 
divine  truth  which  has  Christ  at  its  head,  but  of  a  human 
institution. 

Men  who  believe  in  the  teaching  of  the  church  cannot 
base  their  faith  on  anything  but  the  legality,  the  regularity 
of  the  succession  of  the  hierarchy.  But  the  regularity  and 
legality  of  the  succession  of  the  hierarchy  cannot  be  proved 
in  any  way.  No  historical  investigations  can  confirm  it. 
On  the  contrary,  historical  investigations  not  only  fail  to 
confirm  the  regularity  of  any  hierarchy,  but  show  directly 
that  Christ  did  not  establish  an  infallible  hierarchy,  that 
in  the  first  times  it  did  not  exist,  that  that  system  arose 
in  the  time  of  the  decline  of  the  Christian  teaching, 
during  the  time  of  hatred  and  malice  on  account  of  some 
interpretation  of  dogmas,  and  that  all  the  most  varied 
Christian  teachings  have  asserted  just  as  positively  their 
rights  in  the  regularity  of  the  succession  in  their  church, 
and  have  denied  that  regularity  in  others,  so  that  the 
whole  doctrine  of  the  Theology,  which  in  regard  to 
the  church  is  not  verified  in  any  respect,  comes  down  for 
me  to  the  desire  of  certain  persons  to  advance,  in  opposi- 
tion to  other  teachings  (which  have  just  such  pretensions 
and  which  with  just  as  much  right  assert  that  they  are  in 
the  right),  their  own  teaching  as  the  only  one  which  is 
true  and  holy. 

So  far  I  have  not  seen  in  this  teaching  anything  true 


CRITIQUE   OF   DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY  339 

and  holy,  and  uot  even  anything  rational  and  good.  The 
attempts  of  these  theologians,  especially  of  our  Khomya- 
kov,  to  overthrow  the  foundation  of  the  church,  the  infal- 
libility of  the  hierarchy,  and  to  put  in  its  place  the 
mystical  conception  of  all  the  believers  who  are  united  in 
love,  is  the  last  convulsion  of  this  church  teaching,  a  sup- 
port which  brings  the  whol-j  structure  to  its  fall.  Indeed, 
a  remarkable  quid  pro  qtio  takes  place  here.  To  conceal 
its  crude  assertion  that  the  church  is  the  infallible  hier- 
archy, the  Theology  cloaks  itself  with  false  definitions  of 
the  church  in  the  sense  of  an  assemblage  of  all  the  behev- 
ers.  The  new  theologians  grasp  this  external  and  false 
definition  and,  imagining  that  they  are  basing  their 
church  upon  it,  destroy  the  one  essential  support  of  the 
church,  the  infallibihty  of  the  hierarchy.  Indeed,  for  any 
one  who  does  uot  even  wish  to  trouble  himself  to  investi- 
gate the  arguments  of  the  church  about  the  infallibility  of 
the  hierarchy,  it  is  sufficient  to  read  all  that  which  the 
Protestant  hterature  has  worked  out  in  this  respect.  The 
foundation  of  the  infallibility  of  the  hierarchy  is  destroyed 
in  the  name  of  the  foundation  of  the  church  as  an  assem- 
blage of  believers  united  in  love.  However,  an  assemblage 
of  behevers  united  in  love  can,  obviously,  not  define  any 
dogma,  or  a  Nicene  symbol,  as  Khomyakov  and  other 
theologians  believe. 

An  assemblage  of  believers  united  in  love  is  such  a 
general  conception  that  upon  it  no  common  creed,  or 
dogma,  common  to  all  the  Christians,  can  be  based,  so 
that  the  work  of  the  new  theologians,  if  they  are  at  all 
consistent,  reduces  itself  to  this,  that  the  only  foundation 
of  the  church,  the  infallibility  of  the  church,  is  destroyed, 
but  the  new  one  is  left  what  it  was,  a  mystical  concep- 
tion from  which  can  follow  no  creed,  much  less  a  confes- 
sion of  faith.  The  only  foundation  is  the  infallibility  of 
the  hierarchy,  —  for  those  who  believe  in  it. 


t 


XIV. 

Section  II.  Of  divine  grace  as  a  force  with  which  the 
Lord  sanctifies  us.  This  whole  division  expounds  the 
Saviour's  special  relation  to  men.  Section  I.  expounded 
the  conception  of  the  church,  that  instrument  by  which 
the  human  race  is  saved  ;  now,  it  would  seem,  ought  to  be 
expounded  those  means  by  which  men  are  saved,  but  that 
will  be  expounded  in  Section  III.  This  2d  section  will 
expound  wherein  the  salvation  will  actually  consist.  It  is 
this  doctrine  that  will  be  expounded  in  this  section. 
This  doctrine  is  called  the  doctrine  about  grace.  What  is 
meant  by  the  v/ord  "  grace  "  ? 

Art.  183  begins  with  various  definitions  of  grace: 

"  1.  Under  the  name  of  divine  grace  is  in  general 
understood  aU  that  which  the  Lord  gives  to  all  his  crea- 
tures without  any  deserts  on  their  parts  (Rom.  xi.  6  ; 
1  Peter  v.  10)." 

That  is  the  definition  of  grace.  Then  follow  subdivi- 
sions. 

"  For  that  reason  divine  grace  is  divided  into  natural 
and  supernatural.  To  natural  grace  belong  all  natural 
gifts  of  God  to  the  creatures,  such  as,  life,  health,  reason, 
freedom,  external  well-being,  and  so  forth.  To  super- 
natural grace  beloncr  all  gifts  which  are  communicated  by 
God  to  the  creatures  in  a  supernatural  manner,  m  addition 
to  the  gifts  of  Nature,  when,  for  example,  he  himself 
directly  enhghtens  the  mind  of  rational  beings  with  the 
light  of  his  truth,  and  strengthens  their  will  with  his 
power   and    cooperation   in    matters    of    godliness.     This 

340 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  341 

supernatural  grace  is  divided  into  two  species :  into  the 
grace  of  God  the  Creator,  which  he  communicates  to  his 
moral  creatures  tliat  abide  in  a  condition  of  innocence ; 
he  communicated  it  to  man  before  his  fall,  and  even  now 
imparts  it  to  his  good  angels ;  and  into  the  grace  of  God 
the  Saviour,  which  he  has  given  more  properly  to  fallen 
man  through  Jesus  and  in  Jesus  Christ  (Tit.  iii.  4)." 
(p.  248.) 

This  latter  subdivision  is  further  subdivided  into  three 
parts:  grace  is  divided  into  (1)  the  incarnation  of  Christ 
and  the  redemption  ;  (2)  extraordinary  gifts  for  the  advan- 
tage of  the  church,  such  as  prophecy,  miracles,  and  so 
forth,  and  (3)  — 

"  Last,  by  grace  is  understood  a  special  force,  a  special 
action  of  God,  which  is  communicated  to  us  on  account  of 
the  deserts  of  our  Eedeemer,  and  which  achieves  our 
sanctification,  that  is,  which,  on  the  one  hand,  purifies  us 
from  sin,  renovates,  and  justifies  us  before  God,  and,  on  the 
other,  confirms  us  and  turns  us  back  to  virtue  for  eternal 
life.  In  this  latter  sense  grace  forms  the  proper  subject 
of  the  dogmatic  teaching  about  it."     (p.  249.) 

This  latter  subdivision  contains  in  it  three  more  par- 
ticular conceptions. 

"  (1)  It  is  :  (a)  a  special  force,  a  special  divine  action  in 
man,  as  is  to  be  seen  from  the  words  of  the  Lord  him- 
self to  the  Apostle  Paul :  My  grace  is  sufficient  for  thee : 
for  my  strength  is  made  perfect  in  weakness,  and  then 
from  the  words  of  St.  Paul :  Most  gladly  therefore  will  I 
rather  glory  in  my  infirmities,  that  the  power  of  Christ 
may  rest  upon  me  (2  Cor.  xii.  9).  (b)  It  is  given  to  us  for 
nothing,  on  account  of  the  deserts  of  Jesus  Christ,  as  the 
same  apostle  teaches  us :  For  all  have  sinned,  and  come 
short  of  the  glory  of  God ;  being  justified  freely  by  his 
grace  through  the  redemption  that  is  in  Christ  Jesus 
(Rom.  iii.  23,  24).  (d)  It  is  given  to  us  for  the  sake  of  our 
sanctification,  that  is,  for  our  purification  and  justification, 


342  CKITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

for  our  success  in  godliness  and  salvation.  That  is  con- 
firmed by  the  f ollov»^ing  passages  in  Scripture :  Grace  and 
peace  be  multiplied  unto  you  through  the  knowledge  of 
God,  and  of  Jesus  our  Lord,  according  as  his  divine  power 
hath  given  unto  us  all  things  that  pertain  unto  life  and 
godliness,  through  the  knowledge  of  him  that  hath  called 
us  to  glory  and  virtue  (1  Peter  i.  2,  3),  and  so  forth. 
This  sanctifying  grace  is,  for  the  greater  clearness  of  its 
teaching,  subdivided  into  two  particular  kinds.  It  is 
called  external  in  so  far  as  it  acts  upon  man  externally, 
through  external  means,  such  as,  the  Word  of  God,  the 
preaching  of  the  Gospel,  miracles,  and  so  forth ;  and  in- 
ternal, in  so  far  as  it  acts  directly  in  man  himself,  des- 
troying the  sins  in  him,  enlightening  his  reason,  exciting 
and  directing  his  will  toward  the  good.  It  is  called  tem- 
porary, when  it  produces  special  impressions  upon  a  man's 
soul  and  cooperates  in  his  special  good  deeds ;  and  con- 
stant, when  it  abides  constantly  in  man's  soul  and  makes 
him  righteous  and  pleasing  before  God.  It  is  called  pre- 
monitory, when  it  precedes  each  good  deed  and  incites 
man  to  commit  good  deeds ;  and  accompanying  or  coac- 
tive,  when  it  accompanies  each  good  deed.  It  is  called 
sufficient,  when  it  imparts  to  man  sufficient  force  and  con- 
venience to  act  for  his  salvation,  though  it  may  not  be 
accompanied  by  the  action  itself  on  the  part  of  man ;  and 
real,  when  it  is  accompanied  by  the  action  itself  and  pro- 
duces in  man  saving  fruits."     (pp.  249  and  250.) 

Thus  there  are  in  all  fourteen  different  kinds  of  grace, 
and  all  those  will  be  properly  disclosed.  All  the  contrary 
opinions  will  be  refuted,  and  everything  will,  according  to 
the  usual  method,  be  confirmed  by  Holy  Scripture.  In  no 
part  of  the  doctrine,  so  manifestly  as  in  the  doctrine  about 
grace,  will  the  remark  be  confirmed  that  the  less  the  doc- 
trine is  necessary  in  order  to  explain  the  meaning  of  life 
to  man  and  to  guide  him  to  union  with  God,  the  more 
has  the  church  been  talking  about  it,  the  less  it  is  com- 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  343 

prehensible,  and  the  more  controversies,  lies,  malicious 
attacks,  wars,  and  executions  have  taken  place  because  of 
it,  as  we  know  from  history.  Indeed,  what  can  be  more 
remarkable,  for  uselessness,  than  this  remarkable  teaching 
about  grace,  about  what,  according  to  the  definition  of  the 
Theology,  is  given  by  God  to  his  creatures  without  the 
least  desert  on  their  part.  One  would  think  that  accord- 
ing to  this  definition  grace  is  the  whole  of  hfe,  everything, 
for  everything  is  given  to  us  by  God  without  the  least 
desert  on  our  part,  and  that  therefore  the  relation  of  man 
to  grace  is  the  relation  of  man  to  life.  So  it  is,  but  since 
the  Theology  understands  man's  relation  to  hfe  in  the 
most  perverse  manner,  all  the  discussions  about  grace 
reduce  themselves  to  the  attempt  to  lower  the  meaning  of 
life  to  a  most  monstrous  and  crude  conception. 

First  it  takes  the  account  of  the  creation  of  man,  in 
which  Holy  Scripture  expresses  in  the  person  of  Adam 
the  relation  of  man's  freedom  to  grace,  that  is,  to  the 
external  world.  The  whole  account  is  taken  by  the  The- 
ology in  the  historical  sense  only.  Adam  fell,  and  the 
whole  human  race  perisliedj  and  before  Christ  there  was 
no  relation  of  man's  freedom  to  grace,  that  is  to  life,  there 
was  no  life,  and  men  did  not  do  wrong.  Christ  came  and 
redeemed  the  whole  human  race,  and  then,  speaking 
strictly,  according  to  the  teaching  of  the  Theology,  there 
was  again  destroyed  the  relation  of  man's  freedom  to  grace, 
to  the  external  world,  for  according  to  the  church  teaching 
man  became  all  holy  and  now  does  only  what  is  good. 
But,  as  we  know,  nothing  of  the  kind  has  ever  happened, 
and  the  whole  meaning  of  the  Old  Testament  and  Gospel 
teaching  and  of  all  moral  and  philosophical  teachings  con- 
sists only  in  finding  a  solution  of  the  contradictions  of 
good  and  evil,  which  are  struggling  in  man.  Although 
theology  asserts  that  man  after  his  redemption  became 
entirely  good,  it  knows  that  that  is  an  untruth.  It  is 
not  true  that  all  men  were  bad  before  the  redemption  and 


344  CKITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

became  all  good  after  that,  and  so  the  Theology  sees  that 
the  question,  as  it  stood  before  Adam,  —  whether  to  eat 
or  not  to  eat  the  apple,  and  as  it  stands  before  us,  — 
whether  to  live  or  not  to  live  according  to  the  teaching  of 
Christ,  is  still  standing  before  men,  and  so  it  was  compelled 
to  invent  a  doctrine  by  which  the  question  of  what  man 
must  do  should  be  supplanted  by  the  question  of  what  he 
ought  to  confess  and  speak.  And  for  that  purpose  is 
invented  the  teaching,  at  first,  of  the  church,  and  now, 
of  grace. 

But,  as  we  shall  later  see,  this  teaching  about  grace  is 
insufficient,  and  there  is  invented  another,  a  new  teaching 
about  faith,  which  is  to  cooperate  in  the  obfuscation  before 
people  of  the  chief  religious  and  moral  question  as  to  how 
men  ought  to  live.  It  is  impossible  connectedly  to  render 
this  teaching  about  grace  in  the  manner  in  which  it  is 
expounded.  The  more  you  penetrate  into  it,  the  less  you 
comprehend  it.  You  read  and  fail  to  understand,  not 
only  what  is  being  expounded,  but  even  why  it  is  all  ex- 
pounded. Only  after  reading  the  whole  Theology  through, 
after  reading  the  chapter  on  the  sacraments  and  on  the 
mysteries,  and  recalling  the  contradiction  with  reality, 
which  is  put  in  the  dogma  of  the  redemption,  is  it  possible, 
at  last,  to  divine  the  cause  which  made  them  invent  those 
strange  aberrations,  and  to  explain  to  ourselves  that  re- 
markable doctrine. 

The  explanation  of  the  doctrine  about  grace  I  find  to  be 
as  follows :  the  hierarchy  (for  exactness'  sake  I  will  from 
now  on  use  this  word  instead  of  the  obscure  "  church  ") 
teaches  us  that  Christ  redeemed  the  human  race,  destroyed 
sin,  evil,  death,  diseases,  and  the  unfruitfulness  of  the  earth. 
In  reality  nothing  of  the  kind  lias  been  destroyed  ;  every- 
thing was  left  as  of  old.  How,  then,  justify  the  unjustified 
assertion  ?  In  order  to  justify  it,  it  is  necessary  to  attach 
to  the  salvation  of  the  human  race  by  Christ  another  condi- 
tion, without  which  this  salvation  cannot  take  place,  so  as 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  345 

to  have  the  right  to  say  that  the  redemptiou  took  place,  but 
is  not  active,  because  men  did  not  observe  the  condition 
with  which  alone  it  is  active.  That  teaching  is  grace. 
The  Theology  says  outright : 

"  Divine  grace  is  necessary  for  the  sauctilication  of  sin- 
ful man  in  general,  that  is,  iu  order  that  the  sinner  shall 
be  able  to  come  out  from  his  sinful  state,  become  a  true 
Christian,  and,  in  this  manner,  make  his  own  the  deserts 
of  the  Eedeemer,  or  else  be  changed,  purified,  justified, 
renovated,  and  then  abide  in  godliness  and  attain  eternal 
salvation."     (p.  259.) 

Thus  the  redemption  became  active  only  on  condition 
that  grace  be  obtained,  and  so  the  non-achievement  of  the 
redemption  is  explained  by  the  absence  of  grace,  and  the 
w^hole  aim  of  the  believers  is  now  directed  toward  obtain- 
ing grace,  and  grace  is  transmitted  through  the  sacraments. 
This  sanctitication  by  sacraments,  that  is,  the  drawing  of 
people  toward  sacerdotal  rites,  forms  another  cause  for  the 
teaching  about  grace.  Thus  the  teaching  about  grace  has 
two  caufses,  one  —  logical,  an  explanation  of  the  statement 
that  the  whole  world  has  changed,  whereas  it  has  not,  and 
the  other  —  practical,  the  use  of  sacraments  and  mysteries 
as  means  for  obtaining  grace. 

The  doctrine  about  grace  is,  on  the  one  hand,  an  inev- 
itable result  of  a  false  premise  that  Christ  by  his  redemp- 
tion has  changed  the  whole  world,  and,  on  the  other,  it  is 
the  foundation  of  those  sacerdotal  rites,  which  are  neces- 
sary for  the  believers,  in  order  to  throw  dust  in  their  eyes, 
and  for  the  hierarchy,  in  order  that  it  may  take  advan- 
tage of  its  sacerdotal  calling.  This  teaching  about  grace 
is  in  itself  striking  by  its  complexity,  entanglement,  and 
absolute  barrenness  of  contents.  If  previously  some  parts 
of  the  teaching  involuntarily  reminded  one  of  a  man  who 
pretended  before  a  public  to  measure  hundreds  of  yards  of 
the  imaginary  hair  of  the  Virgin,  this  teaching  may  be  com- 
pared with  the  action  of  this  man,  who,  after  measuring 


346  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

the  imaginary  hairs,  should  make  it  appear  that  the  hairs 
which  he  has  measured  out  have  become  tangled  and  he 
is  trying  to  unravel  them.  Besides,  this  teaching  about 
grace,  the  purpose  of  which  is  to  pull  the  wool  over  the 
eyes  of  the  believers  because  of  the  non-achievement  of 
the  promise  of  redemption,  and  to  increase  the  income  of 
the  clergy,  bears  in  itself  that  terrible  germ  of  immorality 
which  has  morally  corrupted  the  generations  that  confess 
this  teaching.  If  a  man  is  going  to  believe  in  the  decep- 
tion that  he  can  be  cured  from  diseases  by  the  grace  of  the 
chrism,  or  that  he  will  be  immortal  if  he  receives  the  grace, 
or  in  the  concealment  of  the  fact  that  the  earth  continues 
to  be  unfruitful,  —  all  these  deceptions  have  been  compara- 
tively harmless,  but  the  deception  about  man's  being 
always  sinful  and  impotent  and  about  the  uselessness  of 
his  striving  after  good,  if  he  does  not  acquire  grace,  — 
this  teaching  cuts  down  to  the  root  everything  which  is 
best  in  human  nature.  The  immorality  of  this  teaching 
could  not  help  but  startle  all  the  best  men  who  have  hved 
amidst  this  confession,  and  so  against  tliis  side  of  the  doc- 
trine —  about  the  relation  of  man's  freedom  to  grace  — 
have  risen  the  more  honest  men  in  the  church  itself,  and 
so  this  question  has  been  complicated  by  endless  contro- 
versies, which  until  the  present  divided  the  different 
creeds. 

In  Art.  184  there  is  an  exposition  of  these  controversies 
about  grace  : 

"  The  dogma  about  grace  which  sanctifies  sinful  man 
has  been  subject  to  very  many  mutilations  on  the  part  of 
the  heterodox  and  heretics.  I.  Some  of  these  have  erred 
and  still  err,  in  a  greater  or  lesser  degree,  as  regards  the 
necessity  of  grace  for  man.  To  these  belong  the  Pelagians, 
Semi-Pelagians,  Socinians,  and  rationalists.  The  Pelagians, 
who  appeared  in  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century  in  the 
Western  church,  taught  as  follows :  '  Since  Adam  by  his 
fall  in  no  way  impaired  his  nature  and  consequently  his 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY:  347 

descendants  are  born  without  any  natural  corruption  or 
original  sin,  they  may  by  mere  natural  forces  attain  moral 
perfection  and  have  no  need  for  that  purpose  of  any  super- 
natural divine  aid  and  force.'  Against  Pelagius  and  his 
followers  first  of  all  rose  St.  Augustine,  who  wrote  very 
many  works  in  refutal  of  them.  There  rose  also  many 
other  pastors  of  the  church,  and  both  in  the  East  and  in 
the  West  there  met  in  a  short  time  more  than  twenty 
councils  which  unauimously  condemned  that  heresy.  The 
defenders  of  the  truth  unanimously  maintained :  (a)  that 
man,  who  has  fallen  and  is  born  in  original  sin,  cannot  in 
himself  create  any  spiritual  good  without  the  aid  of  grace  ; 

(b)  that  by  it  are  to  be  understood  not  merely  the  natural 
forces  of  man,  the  law  of  Moses,  the  teaching  and  example 
of  Jesus  Christ,  external  aids,  but  the  supernatural  power 
of  God,  which  is  inwardly  communicated  to  man's  soul ; 

(c)  that  this  grace  does  not  consist  merely  in  the  remission 
of  former  sins,  but  offers  real  assistance  in  keeping  man 
from  committing  new  ones;  (d)  it  not  only  illuminates 
reason  and  imparts  to  it  the  knowledge  of  what  is  to  be 
done  and  what  avoided,  but  also  gives  it  the  strength  to 
carry  out  what  has  been  found  good,  and  pours  love  into 
the  heart ;  (e)  it  not  only  makes  easier  for  us  the  execu- 
tion of  the  divine  commands,  which  we  are  supposed  to 
perform  by  ourselves,  though  inconveniently  so,  but  acts 
as  an  assistance,  without  which  we  are  not  able  to  execute 
the  divine  law  and  to  do  the  good  which  cooperates  in 
our  salvation. 

"At  the  present  time  the  teaching  of  the  Orthodox 
Church,  as  directed  against  the  heresy  of  the  Pelagians, 
may  be  seen  in  the  three  following  rules  of  the  Council 
at  Cartilage,  which  is  accepted  among  the  number  of  the 
nine  local  councils,  and  which  met  to  refute  Pelagius  :  '  If 
any  one  says  that  divine  grace,  by  which  men  are  justified 
in  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,  is  active  only  in  the  remission 
of  sins  already  committed,  but  does  not  in  addition  to 


348  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

that  furnish  any  assistance,  unless  new  sins  be  committed : 
let  such  a  one  be  anathema.  For  divine  grace  not  only 
gives  the  knowledge  of  what  is  proper  to  do,  but  also 
inspires  us  with  love,  that  we  may  be  able  to  carry  out 
what  we  know.'  '  If  any  one  says  that  the  same  divine 
grace,  which  is  about  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,  aids  us  only 
in  keeping  us  from  sinning,  since  by  it  is  revealed  and 
manifested  to  us  the  knowledge  of  sins,  so  that  we  may 
know  what  to  seek  and  what  to  avoid,  but  that  by  it  are 
not  given  to  us  the  love  and  the  power  of  doing  that  which 
we  have  found  good  to  do :  let  such  a  one  be  anathema. 
For  both  are  the  gifts  of  God,  both  the  knowledge  of  what 
is  proper  to  do,  and  the  love  of  the  good  which  it  is  proper 
to  do.'  '  If  any  one  says  that  the  grace  of  justification  is 
given  to  us  so  that  what  may  be  performed  by  our  free 
will  may  be  more  conveniently  done  through  grace,  for, 
without  receiving  divine  grace,  we  have  been  able,  though 
inconveniently,  to  perform  the  divine  commandments :  let 
such  a  one  be  anathema.  For  of  the  fruits  of  the  com- 
mandments the  Lord  has  not  said :  Without  me  you  will 
do  inconveniently,  but  he  has  said :  Without  me  ye 
can  do  nothing.' " 

That,  according  to  the  Theology,  is  the  first  error.  The 
second  error  consists  in  this,  that  to  some  God  has  given 
grace  and  has  preordained  them  to  the  judgment,  while 
to  others  he  has  given  grace  and  has  preordained  them 
to  salvation.     This  is  the  way  it  has  to  be  considered : 

"  We  believe  that  the  all-good  God  has  preordained  to 
glory  those  whom  he  has  chosen  from  eternity ;  and 
whom  he  has  rejected  he  has  turned  over  to  the  judg- 
ment, not,  however,  because  he  wishes  in  this  manner  to 
justify  some,  and  leave  others  and  judge  them,  without 
cause  :  for  that  is  not  characteristic  of  God,  who  is  common 
to  all,  and  is  not  a  revengeful  Father,  who  will  have  all 
men  to  be  saved,  and  to  come  unto  the  knowledge  of  the 
truth  (1  Tim.  ii.  4)  ;  since  he  foresaw  that  some  will  make 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  349 

good  use  of  their  free  will,  while  others  will  not,  he  has 
preordained  some  to  glory,  and  others  he  has  condemned. 
Of  the  use  of  freedom  we  judge  in  the  following  manner : 
since  divine  goodness  has  given  us  the  divine  grace,  which, 
like  the  light  illuminating  the  path  of  those  who  walk  in 
darkness,  guides  us  all,  those  who  wish  freely  to  submit 
to  it  (for  it  assists  those  who  have  it,  and  who  do  not 
oppose  it)  and  to  fulfil  its  conunands,  which  are  abso- 
lutely necessary  for  salvation,  for  that  reason  receive  a 
special  grace,  which,  cooperating  with  them  and  strength- 
ening and  constantly  perfecting  them  in  divine  love,  that 
is,  in  those  good  works,  which  Gotl  demands  of  us  (and 
which  also  the  premonitory  grace  has  demanded),  justifies 
them  and  makes  them  preordained ;  but  those,  on  tlie 
contrary,  who  will  not  obey  and  follow  grace,  and  who 
therefore  do  not  fulfil  the  divine  commandments,  but, 
following  the  instigation  of  Satan,  make  ill  use  of  their 
freedom,  which  God  has  given  them  for  the  purpose  of 
arbitrarily  doing  good,  are  given  over  to  eternal  condem- 
nation. But  wdiat  the  blasphemous  heretics  say  of  God's 
preordaining  and  condemning,  without  paying  any  atten- 
tion to  the  works  of  the  preordained  or  the  condemned, 
we  regard  as  madness  and  ungodliness."  (pp.  255  and 
256.) 

The  error  cannot  be  rendered  in  one's  own  words ;  here 
it  is: 

"  In  regard  to  the  nature  of  the  sanctification  or  justi- 
fication, as  taken  in  its  broad  meaning,  the  Protestants 
assert  that  it  consists :  (a)  not  in  that  the  divine  grace 
acts  inwardly  on  man  and  actually,  on  the  one  hand, 
purifies  him  from  all  sins,  and,  on  the  other,  cooperates 
with  the  renovated,  righteous,  holy  ;  (h)  but  in  this,  that, 
by  God's  will,  the  sins  are  pardoned  only  externally  and 
are  not  put  against  the  man,  though  in  reality  they 
remain  in  him,  —  that  Christ's  righteousness  is  put  to 
his  account  only  in  an  external  manner.     Such  is  the 


350  CRITIQUE    OP   DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY 

teacliing  of  the  Lutherans  and  of  the  Eeformers.  The 
teaching  of  the  Orthodox  Church  is  of  an  entirely  dif- 
ferent kind.  Speaking  of  the  fruits  of  the  sacrament  of 
baptism,  in  which  properly  takes  place  our  justification 
and  sanctification  through  grace,  the  church  teaches  : 

" '  In  the  first  place,  this  sacrament  destroys  all  sins  :  in 
babes  —  original  sin,  and  in  grown  persons  both  original 
and  arbitrary  sin.  In  the  second  place,  it  reestablishes 
for  him  that  righteousness  which  he  had  in  the  condition 
of  innocence  and  sinlessness.'  And  in  another  place  :  '  It 
cannot  be  said  that  the  baptism  does  not  free  from  all 
former  sins,  but  that  they  remain  indeed,  but  no  longer 
have  any  force.  It  is  extreme  ungodhness  to  teach  in 
that  manner ;  it  is  an  overthrowing  of  faith,  and  not  a 
confession  of  it.  On  the  contrary,  every  sin  which  exists 
or  has  existed  before  the  baptism  is  destroyed  and  is  re- 
garded as  though  it  did  not  exist  or  had  never  existed. 
For  all  the  forms  under  which  baptism  is  represented 
show  its  purifying  power,  and  the  utterances  of  Holy 
Scripture  give  us  to  understand  that  through  it  we  receive 
complete  purification,  which  is  seen  from  the  very  name  of 
baptism.  If  it  is  a  baptism  by  the  Spirit  and  by  fire,  it  is 
evident  that  it  offers  complete  purification,  for  the  Spirit 
purifies  completely.  If  it  is  hght,  every  darkness  is  dis- 
pelled by  it.  If  it  is  regeneration,  everytliing  old  passes 
away ;  and  this  old  thing  is  nothing  but  the  sins.  If  the 
man  who  is  baptized  is  divested  of  the  old  man,  he  is 
also  divested  of  sin.  If  he  is  invested  in  Christ,  he  with 
the  same  becomes  sinless  through  baptism  (Epistle  of  the 
Eastern  Patriarchs,  Section  16).'"     (pp.  256  and  257.) 

186.  The  necessity  of  grace  for  the  sanctification  of 
man  in  general.  It  is  proved  by  Holy  Scripture,  and  this 
is  the  way  it  is  determined  by  the  councils : 

"  If  any  one  asserts  that  for  our  purification  from  sins 
God  waits  for  our  desire,  and  does  not  confess  that  the 
desire  itself  to  purify  ourselves  takes  place  in  us  through 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  351 

the  emanation  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  his  cooperation,  he 
contradicts  the  Holy  Ghost."     (p.  262.) 

It  is  not  permitted  to  believe  that  God  is  waitiDg  for 
our  desire  to  purify  ourselves,  but  we  must  believe  that 
the  Holy  Ghost,  that  is,  the  same  God  in  another  person, 
produces  this  desire  to  purify  ourselves.  If  the  desire 
has  already  taken  place  and  1  am  myself  a  creature  of 
God,  and  the  desire  is  directed  toward  God,  it  is  evident 
that  this  desire  nmst  not  be  acknowledged  as  anything 
else  but  as  having  emanated  from  God.  All  these  utter- 
ances remain  completely  unintelligible,  if  we  do  not  keep 
in  mind  the  aim  toward  which  they  lead.  This  aim 
consists  in  replacing  the  tendency  to  do  good  by  the 
external  actions  of  the  sacraments  which  impart  grace, 
further : 

"  If  any  one-  asserts  that  a  man  may,  by  the  force  of 
his  nature,  think  rightly,  or  choose  something  good,  which 
refers  to  eternal  salvation,  and  agree  to  receive  the  saving, 
that  is,  the  evangelical,  sermon  without  the  illumination 
and  instigation  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  he  is  seduced  by  a 
heretical  spirit  (Eule  VII.)."     (p.  262.) 

A  man  cannot  wish  for  anything  good  without  the 
inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  but  the  inspiration  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  is  imparted  through  grace;  grace  is 
communicated  through  the  sacraments ;  and  the  sacra- 
ments are  communicated  by  the  hierarchy. 

187.  The  necessity  of  grace  for  faith  and  for  the  very 
beginning  of  faith,  or  for  a  man's  conversion  to  Chris- 
tianity. "  Divine  grace,  which  is  necessary  in  general  for 
man's  illumination  and  salvation,  is  necessary  in  particular 
for  his  faith  and  for  the  very  beginning  of  the  faith  in 
the  Lord  Jesus."     (p.  263.) 

Proofs  from  Holy  Scripture  and  decrees  of  a  council : 

"  If  any  one  says  that  the  increase,  as  well  as  the 
beginning  of  faith,  and  the  very  disposition  toward  it, 
by  which  we  believe  in  the  justification  of  the  ungodly 


352  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

and  proceed  to  the  regeneration  in  the  sacrament  of 
baptism,  are  in  us  not  by  the  gift  of  grace,  that  is,  by 
the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  who  directs  our  will 
from  unbelief  to  belief,  from  godlessness  to  godhness,  but 
takes  place  naturally,  —  such  a  one  proves  himself  to  be 
an  opponent  of  the  apostolic  dogmas  (Rule  V.)."  (p. 
267.) 

The  meaning  of  the  decree  is  that  the  believers  must 
acknowledge  that  the  change  from  godlessness  to  godh- 
ness cannot  take  place  naturally,  but  is  only  the  result 
of  grace,  that  is,  of  some  unnatural,  external  action.  But 
if  our  will  is  completely  directed  by  the  Holy  Ghost, 
then  what  free  will  has  the  Theology  just  been  speak- 
ins  about  when  it  said  that  God  wants  all  men  to  be 
saved,  but  that  he  foresaw  that  some  would  make  good 
use  of  their  free  will,  while  others  would  not  ?  If  he 
wants  to  save  and  everything  depends  on  him,  why  does 
he  not  save  ? 

"  188.  Being  necessary  for  the  very  conversion  of  man 
to  Christianity,  for  his  faith,  and  for  the  beginning  of 
faith,  divine  grace  remains  necessary  for  man  even  after 
his  conversion,  so  that  he  may  fulfil  the  evangelical  law 
for  a  worthy  life  according  to  Christ."     (p.  271.) 

Proofs  from  Holy  Scripture  conclude  with  this : 

"  Although  man  may  be  inclined  toward  good  before 
his  regeneration,  and  choose  and  do  moral  good,  neverthe- 
less, in  order  that  he  may  be  able  after  his  regeneration 
to  do  spiritual  good  (for  the  works  of  faith,  being  the 
cause  of  salvation  and  being  performed  by  supernatural 
grace,  are  generally  called  spiritual),  it  is  necessary  for 
grace  to  premonish  and  guide,  so  that  he  cannot  by  him- 
self do  works  that  are  worthy  of  a  life  according  to  Christ, 
but  can  only  wish  or  not  wish  to  act  in  accordance  with 
grace."     (p.  274.) 

The  meaning  of  this  discussion  is  still  more  definite, 
and  its  expression  is  much  bolder.    Here  it  says  distinctly 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY  353 

that,  although  a  man  may  be  able  to  do  good  deeds  with- 
out grace,  he  loses  the  possibility  of  doing  good  deeds  the 
moment  he  accepts  the  teaching  of  the  church,  and  can 
only  wish  for  it,  by  invoking  the  aid  of  the  hierarchy. 
But  even  the  desire  for  grace,  as  has  just  been  said,  is 
given  only  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  that  is,  again  by  grace. 
The  Theology  is  evidently  moving  in  a  magic  circle, 

"189.  If  without  divine  grace  man  cannot  become  a 
believer,  or  believe  in  Christ,  or  do  deeds  that  are  worthy 
of  a  life  according  to  Christ,  it  follows  naturally  that 
without  the  cooperation  of  divine  grace  man  cannot  abide 
in  the  Christian  faith  and  godliness  to  the  end  of  his 
life." 

Here  it  says  that  the  cooperation  of  this  external  grace 
is  not  exhausted  by  baptism  and  faith,  but  that  for  the 
salvation  the  constant  aid  of  the  hierarchy  is  needed. 
All  that  would  seem  to  be  clear,  but  now  follows  Art. 
190,  which  refutes  the  heretics.  In  this  and  the  fol- 
lowing articles  the  whole  disconnection  of  the  teaching 
becomes  manifest. 

The  hierarchy  needs  a  teaching  which  would  reduce 
the  whole  teaching  about  life  to  a  teaching  about  the  sac- 
raments, but  that  cannot  be  expressed  outright :  the 
immorality  of  such  a  teaching  is  too  obvious.  Besides, 
there  have  been  many  controversies  in  regard  to  this  ques- 
tion. Some  reflected  consistently  :  if  grace  saves,  the  free 
efforts  of  man  are  useless ;  others  said :  if  the  free  efforts 
of  man  are  needed,  the  whole  thing  lies  in  them,  and 
grace  is  imparted  to  them  ;  but  our  Theology  refutes  both, 
and  itself  becomes  entangled  and  persists  in  that  tangle. 

"  Contrary  to  the  errors  of  the  Calvinists  and  Jansen- 
ists,  which  are  that  God  gives  his  grace  only  to  a  few  men, 
whom  he  has  unconditionally  preordained  to  righteousness 
and  eternal  bliss,  and  therefore  gives  an  invincible  grace, 
the  Orthodox  Church  teaches :  (a)  that  divine  grace  ex- 
tends over  aU  men,  and  not  only  on  the  preordained  to 


354  CKITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

righteousness  and  eternal  bliss  ;  (b)  that  the  preordain- 
ment  of  some  by  God  to  eternal  bliss  and  of  others  to  eter- 
nal damnation  is  not  unconditional,  but  is  based  on  the 
foreknowledge  whether  they  will  take  advantage  of  the 
grace,  or  not;  (c)  that  divine  grace  does  not  embarrass 
man's  freedom,  does  not  act  invincibly  upon  it,  and  (d) 
that,  on  the  contrary,  man  takes  an  active  part  in  what 
divdne  grace  works  in  him  and  through  him  (Epistle  of 
the  Eastern  Patriarchs,  Section  3)."     (pp.  277  and  278.) 

The  preceding  article  defines  man's  salvation  in  such 
a  way  that  it  obviously  no  longer  results  from  his  efforts, 
but  completely  depends  on  the  communication  of  grace 
from  without.  Consequently  there  had  naturally  to  ap- 
pear the  reflection :  if  salvation  depends  not  on  man,  but 
on  God,  and  God  is  omniscient,  some  people  are  predeter- 
mined to  salvation,  and  others  to  perdition.  But  the 
Theology  does  not  agree  with  the  Calviuists. 

191.  Divine  grace  extends  over  all  men,  and  not  only 
over  those  who  are  preordained  to  righteousness  and  eter- 
nal bliss.  Proofs  are  adduced  to  refute  the  Calvinists. 
And  here  it  turns  out  involuntarily  that  in  refuting  the 
Calvinists  the  Theology  refutes  all  the  decrees  of  the 
councils,  which  determined  that  man  cannot  save  himself 
by  his  own  efforts. 

"  St.  John  Chrysostom  :  *  If  Christ  lighteth  every  man 
that  Cometh  into  the  world  (John  i.  9),  how  then  do  men 
remain  without  illumination  ?  He  actually  illuminates 
everybody.  But  if  some,  voluntarily  closing  the  eyes  of 
their  intellect,  do  not  wish  to  receive  the  beams  of  this 
light,  their  abiding  in  darkness  does  not  depend  on  the 
nature  of  the  light,  but  on  the  ungodliness  of  those  who 
by  their  wiU  deprive  themselves  of  that  gift.  For  the 
grace  has  poured  forth  on  all,  and  those  who  do  not  wish 
to  make  use  of  such  a  gift  must,  in  justice,  blame  them- 
selves for  their  l)linduess.'  St.  Ambrose :  '  He  rose,  like 
a  mysterious  sun,  for  everybody ;  if  some  one  does  not 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  355 

believe  iu  Christ,  he  deprives  himself  of  the  imiversal 
benefit.'  St.  Augustine:  '(rod  sent  not  his  Son  into  the 
world  to  condemn  the  world ;  but  that  the  world  through 
him  might  be  saved  (John  iii.  17).  And  then  as  to  the 
physician :  he  came  to  cure  a  patient ;  and  ,he  who  does 
not  wish  to  keep  the  commands  of  the  physician  achieves 
his  own  ruin.  The  Saviour  came  into  the  world,  —  why 
is  he  called  the  Saviour  if  not  because  it  is  his  aim  to 
save  the  world,  and  not  to  condemn  it  ?  Do  you  not 
wish  to  be  cured  by  him  ?  You  will  be  your  own  judge.'  " 
(p.  280.) 

Before  this  it  was  said  iu  the  councils  that  he  who 
asserts  that  for  our  purification  from  sins  God  expects  our 
consent,  and  that  we  can  choose  the  good,  is  not  right, 
but  here  it  suddenly  turns  out  that  a  man  must  choose  by 
all  means.  Then  follows  Art.  192,  which  is  to  prove 
that  there  is  a  predetermination,  and  that  there  is  no 
predetermination. 

"  3.  St.  Paul  teaches  distinctly  that  divine  predetermi- 
nation is  basfed  on  prescience,  saying :  For  whom  he  did 
foreknow,  he  also  did  predestinate  to  be  conformed  to  the 
image  of  his  Sou  .  .  .  ,  moreover  whom  he  did  predestinate, 
them  he  also  called ;  and  whom  lie  called,  them  he  also 
justified  (Eom.  viii.  29,  30).  He  did  not  simply  predes- 
tinate, says  the  apostle,  but  he  predestinated,  because  he 
foreknew ;  whose  deserts  he  foresaw,  those  he  preordained, 
or,  as  St.  Jerome  expresses  himself :  '  Of  whom  God  knew 
that  they  would  be  conformed  to  the  image  to  his  Son  in 
their  lives,  those  he  preordained  to  be  conformed  to  him 
in  the  glory  itself.' " 

This  whole  article  about  predestination  bears  upon 
itself  the  distinctive  character  partly  of  the  Byzantine  but 
more  especially  of  the  Russian  theology.  Here  is  re- 
peated what  we  find  in  all  debatable  passages  of  the 
Theology.  Some  theologians  say  that  the  whole  matter 
is  in  works,  while  others  say  that  the  whole  matter  is 


356  CKITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

in  grace.  Either  may  be  proved  with  a  certain  degree 
of  consistency,  but  Eussian  theology  never  takes  the 
trouble  to  analyze  thought  and  to  go  consistently  from 
deduction  to  deduction.  It  says :  You  say  it  is  grace, 
then  we  will  generalize  it  and  say :  it  is  both  works  and 
grace,  and  it  does  not  in  the  least  trouble  itself  about  the 
fact  that  one  excludes  the  other.  It  strings  out  a  few 
unintelligible  sentences,  quotes  the  fathers  of  the  church, 
and  comes  to  a  conclusion,  imagining  that  the  question  is 
solved.     Proof  from  Scripture. 

"  4.  The  doctrine  about  the  unconditional  predesti- 
nation of  God  is  contrary  to  common  sense.  Common 
sense  is  convinced  that  God  is  just  and  that,  consequently, 
he  cannot  without  any  cause  preordain  some  to  eternal 
happiness,  and  others  to  eternal  damnation.  It  is  con- 
vinced that  God  is  infinitely  good  and,  consequently,  can 
not  without  any  cause  condemn  any  one  to  eternal  perdi- 
tion. It  is  convinced  that  God  is  infinitely  all-wise  and, 
consequently,  cannot  give  man  freedom  and  yet  embarrass 
it  by  his  unconditional  predetermination  and  take  away 
the  whole  moral  value  of  its  actions."     (p.  286.) 

This  discussion  directly  ignores  everything  which  has 
been  said  against  it  in  the  previous  articles.  And  with 
this  obvious  contradiction  the  whole  argument  is  closed. 

Art.  193  still  more  mixes  up  the  matter.  Here  there 
is  a  contradiction  in  every  word  :  "  Though  God  worketh  in 
us  to  do  of  his  good  pleasure  (Phil.  ii.  14),  and  we  are  not 
able  without  his  grace  to  undertake  anything,  nor  accom- 
plish anything  truly  good :  still  that  divine  power,  work- 
ing in  us  and  through  us,  in  no  way  embarrasses  our 
freedom  and  does  not  draw  it  invincibly  to  the  good." 
(p.  286.) 

What  does  that  mean  ?  Translatins^  the  sentence  into 
intelligible  language,  it  turns  out  that  grace  does  not 
embarrass  our  freedom,  but  we  can  do  nothing  good  with- 
out it.     Where  is  the  freedom  ?     According  to  this  defi- 


CKITIQUE   OF   DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  357 

nition  it  consists  only  iu  doing  all  kinds  of  evil.  The 
whole  discussion  is  of  the  same  character,  so  that  in 
conclusion  it  says : 

"  5.  Common  sense  on  its  side  cannot  help  but  remark 
that  if  divine  grace  embarrasses  man's  freedom  and  draws 
it  forcibly  to  the  good,  then  every  merit  is  taken  away 
from  a  man's  good  actions,  every  incitement  to  do  good, 
and  in  general  his  whole  morality  is  undermined,  and  the 
cause  of  it  all  is  God  himself !  Can  such  ideas  be  ad- 
mitted ?  It  is  true,  reason  cannot  explain  in  what  way 
the  mighty  power  of  God,  acting  upon  man,  leaves  his 
freedom  intact,  and  cannot  with  certainty  detine  their 
mutual  relations  ;  but  none  the  less  this  mystery  must  be 
for  us  above  all  doubt,  since  we  have  so  many  grounds  for 
belief  that  man  is  not  only  not  deprived  of  liberty  under 
the  influence  of  grace  upon  him,  but  also  actively  takes 
part  in  its  action,  which  takes  place  in  him  and  through 
him."     (p.  288.) 

That  is,  in  other  words,  the  Theology  confesses  that  it 
does  not  understand  anything  of  what  it  has  said,  but  that 
it  thinks  that  it  is  necessary  to  believe  in  that  mystery, 
that  is,  in  something  meaningless  and  contradictory,  which 
it  is  even  impossible  to  express. 

Art.  194  continues  the  tangle,  proving  that  man  takes 
an  active  part  in  what  divine  grace  accomplishes  in  him 
and  through  him. 

"  St.  Theodoret :  '  The  apostle  called  it  a  gift  of  God 
not  only  to  believe,  but  also  to  suffer  gloriously  (Phil.  i. 
29),  without  rejecting  the  participation  of  the  free  will  (of 
man),  but  teaching  us  that  the  will  in  itself,  deprived 
of  gi'ace,  cannot  achieve  anything  good.  Both  are  neces- 
sary :  our  readiness,  or  desire,  to  act,  and  the  divine 
cooperation.  And  as  for  those  who  have  not  that  desire 
it  is  not  enough  to  have  the  grace  of  the  Spirit,  even  so,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  mere  desire,  not  strengthened  by  grace, 
cannot  gather  the  riches  of  the  virtues.'  "     (p.  291.) 


358  CRITIQUE    OP   DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

Thus  the  article  asserts  that  a  man  who  cannot  do  any- 
thing good  without  grace  at  the  same  time  takes  part  in 
the  action  of  grace.  Leaving  out  the  absurdity,  contradic- 
toriness,  and  immorality  of  the  whole  doctrine,  one  asks 
himself  involuntarily :  Tor  what  and  for  whom  is  that 
wanted  ?  And  if  any  one  needs  it,  what  is  that  tangle 
for  ?  All  right,  a  man  cannot  do  anything  without  grace : 
then  say  so.  But  no,  the  proof  is  given  that  man  cannot 
be  saved  without  grace,  and  yet  he  must  look  for  that 
grace,  and  cooperate,  and  through  the  whole  tangle  it 
would  seem  impossible  to  answer  the  question  what  it  is 
all  for.  And  if  we  did  not  know  what  is  going  to  follow, 
we  should  get  no  answer.  But  there  is  a  direct  answer  : 
grace,  as  understood  by  the  hierarchy,  is  not  the  grace  of 
the  Calvinists,  a  preordained  salvation,  but  the  grace  of  the 
hierarchy,  —  its  sacraments,  and  these  have  to  be  sought 
for. 

The  sacraments  are  transmitted  to  the  flock  by  the 
priests,  and  the  priests  get  money  for  them.  Conse- 
quently it  is  impossible  to  be  saved  without  grace,  and 
grace  must  be  looked  for  in  the  sacraments.  What  is  bad 
about  it  is  that  with  that  is  not  only  destroyed  the 
whole  moral  significance  of  the  teaching  of  Christ,  but 
every  moral  teaching  is  obscured  by  the  search  after  these 
sacraments  which  can  be  bought  for  money.  But  what  is 
to  be  done  ?  Without  it  there  would  be  no  hierarchy. 
Consequently  the  whole  doctrine  about  grace  is  very  im- 
portant. That  alone  can  explain  to  us  the  wonderful 
doctrine  about  grace. 


XV. 

The  doctrine  about  grace  is  now  regarded  by  the  The- 
ology as  firmly  established,  and  there  begins  the  exposition 
of  the  statement  that  upon  it  is  based  the  doctrine  about 
sanctification  : 

"  In  rejecting  the  error  of  the  Protestants,  who  under 
the  name  of  justification  or  sanctification  of  man  by  grace 
understand  the  mere  remission  of  sins,  although  man  in 
reality  perseveres  in  them,  and  a  mere  external  imputation 
of  the  righteousness  of  Christ,  though  in  reality  man  does 
not  become  righteous,  but  as  a  condition  for  justification 
and  sanctification  recognize  only  faith  on  the  part  of  man, 
the  Orthodox  Church  teaches  :  (a)  that  the  sanctification  of 
man  consists  in  his  being  actually  purified  from  sin  by  the 
grace  of  God  and,  with  its  aid,  becoming  righteous  and 
holy."     (pp.  292  and  293.) 

Here  by  the  words  "  sanctification  of  man  "  are  meant 
the  sacraments.  Thus,  after  the  proofs  from  Holy 
Scripture,  is  quoted  the  utterance  by  St.  John  Chrysostom  : 

"  The  Jewish  priests  had  the  power  to  cleanse  bodily 
leprosy,  or,  more  correctly,  not  to  cleanse,  but  to  testify  to 
the  cleansing.  But  these  (the  Christian  priests)  have  re- 
ceived the  power  not  merely  to  testify  the  cleansing,  but 
completely  to  cleanse  (ciTraAAaTctv  iravTeXm),  not  the  bodily 
leprosy,  but  the  impurity  of  the  soul." 

Thus  the  action  of  grace,  which  heretofore  was  unin- 
telligible, so  long  as  the  question  was  about  grace  in  the 
abstract,  becomes  clear  at  once.    Grace  is  a  holiness  which 

is  communicated  by  the  priests,  and  so  we  now  can  com- 

359 


360  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

prehend  what  is  meant  by  the  statement  that  grace  is 
necessary  for  salvation,  and  that  man  cannot  be  saved  by 
good  works  without  the  sanctification  through  sacraments. 
Without  the  teaching  about  the  sacraments  a  man  will 
strive  to  become  better.  According  to  the  doctrine  of  the 
hierarchy  that  is  not  necessary  ;  what  is  needed  is  nothing 
but  grace.  To  seek  grace  means  to  seek  the  sacraments. 
To  seek  the  sacraments  means  to  accept  the  sacraments 
from  the  priest.  The  concluding  words  of  this  article  are 
important,  because  they  strikingly  confirm  the  proposition 
which  I  have  enunciated  that  the  dogma  of  redemption  is 
one  of  the  foundations  of  the  sacerdotal  institution,  of  the 
hierarchy  : 

"  The  reestablishment  or  redemption  is  nothing  but  the 
reduction  of  man  to  his  original  condition,  in  which  he 
was  before  the  fall.  But  before  the  fall  man  was  actually 
innocent,  righteous,  and  holy.  Consequently  it  is  neces- 
sary for  him  through  this  reestablishment  to  return  to 
precisely  the  same  condition.  In  other  words,  if  those 
who  are  reestablished,  or  justified,  remain  as  before  in 
sin,  without  righteousness  or  holiness,  and  receive  only  a 
remission  of  sins,  and  externally  cloak  themselves  in  the 
righteousness  of  Christ,  there  is  in  that  case  no  reestab- 
lishment properly  speaking,  and  it  is  nothing  but  a 
phantasm  or  a  seeming  reestabhshment."     (p.  297.) 

Reestablishment  is  man's  elevation  to  the  former  state 
of  innocence.  Eedemption,  according  to  the  assertion  of 
the  hierarchy,  has  done  that.  But  the  hierarchy  itself 
sees  that  nothing  of  the  kind  exists :  redemption  has  done 
nothing  of  the  kind.  In  what,  then,  is  this  reestabhsh- 
ment to  be  assumed  ?  It  is  impossible  to  recognize  that 
the  reestabhshment  consists  in  this,  that  actually  good 
men,  having  learned  the  law  of  Christ,  do  more  good  than 
evil,  because  in  that  case  only  good  men  would  be  re- 
deemed, and  bad  men  would  be  in  perdition.  Nor  is  it 
possible  to  assume  that  the  bad  men  are  no  longer  bad, 


CRITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY  361 

and  that  they  are  reestablished  iu  innocence,  because 
Christ  has  redeemed  them  ;  consequently  it  becomes 
necessary  to  invent  an  imaginary  innocence  and  holiness, 
and  such  visible  instruments  for  the  communication  of 
sanctity  as  will  make  it  possible  to  assure  all  men  with- 
out exception  that,  no  matter  how  bad  they  may  be,  they 
are  none  the  less  holy.  And  it  is  precisely  this  that  is 
invented. 

But  for  the  rearing  of  this  artificial  building,  the  imag- 
inary redemption,  the  teaching  about  gi-ace  is  not  sufficient : 
tliere  is  needed  a  new  link  in  this  chain  of  deception. 
And  so,  in  Art.  197,  there  is  an  exposition  of  that  very 
method  of  self-deception  by  means  of  which  men,  doing 
good  deeds,  cannot  regard  their  deeds  as  good,  if  they  do 
not  observe  certain  conditions  established  for  the  purpose, 
and  unrighteous  and  not  innocent  men  may  in  fulfilling 
those  conditions  regard  themselves  as  reestablished,  holy. 
This  self-deception  is  based  on  the  conception  of  faith, 
which  is  introduced  into  the  book  now  for  the  first  time, 
and  which  is  understood  in  an  intentionally  most  mixed 
up  manner.  What  is  said  is  that  faith  is  the  first  con- 
dition on  the  part  of  man  for  his  sauctification  and  salva- 
tion. A  most  tangled  definition  of  faith  is  given :  its 
tendency  is  to  substitute  for  the  idea  of  faith  an  action 
which  is  in  the  power  of  each  man,  and  the  conclusion  is 
drawn  that  he  who  believes  that  he  is  becoming  sanctified 
and  reestablished  in  complete  sanctity  and  innocence, 
that  he  alone  is  actually  reestablished  in  complete  sanctity 
and  innocence.  But,  if  one  believes  that  he  is  holy,  and 
there  is  no  other  means  for-  ascertaining  his  sanctity  but 
the  faith  in  his  sanctity,  it  is  impossible  to  assert  that  he 
is  actually  holy,  though  he  may  unquestionably  regard 
himself  as  such.  If  an  insane  man  believes  that  he  has 
a  tower  on  his  nose,  there  can  be  no  doubt  about  his 
actually  imagining  that  there  is  a  tower  on  his  nose,  but 
no  one  will  think  of  asserting  that  there  is  really  a  tower 


362  CRITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY 

on  his  nose.  And  yet  on  precisely  such  a  consideration 
is  built  the  whole  doctrine  alaout  the  sauctification  through 
faith.     Here  is  the  discussion : 

"197.  Divine  grace,  which  achieves  our  sanctification, 
indeed  extends  over  all  men,  but  does  not  act  upon  them 
against  their  will,  and  in  fact  sanctities  a  sinner,  and 
thereupon  saves  him,  only  when  certain  conditions  are 
observed  on  his  part.     The  first  of  these  is  faith." 

This  unexpected  introduction  into  the  discussion  of  the 
idea  of  faith  is  particularly  remarkable  because  all  those 
dogmas  which  have  been  disclosed  to  us  heretofore,  begin- 
ning with  the  concept  of  God,  were  nothing  but  truths  of 
faith.  Up  till  now  there  has  not  once  been  any  mention 
made  about  faith  and  there  has  not  been  any  definition 
of  what  is  to  be  understood  by  the  word  "  faith."  Here- 
tofore it  was  assumed  that  faith  was  that  correct  knowl- 
edge of  God,  as  indeed  the  Eastern  Patriarchs  say,  that 
correct  conception  about  God,  which  lies  at  the  foundation 
of  every  other  knowledge,  and  that  everything  else  resulted 
from  faith,  but  there  has  by  no  means  been  given  that 
definition  of  faith  by  which  it  is  the  action  of  the  human 
will.     Here  it  turns  out  to  be  some  kind  of  an  action  : 

"  (1)  Under  the  name  of  faith  in  general  is  understood 
here  the  free  acceptance  and  appropriation  by  man  with 
all  the  powers  of  his  soul  of  those  truths  which  it  has 
pleased  God  to  reveal  to  us  in  Christ  for  our  salvation. 
By  faith  is  meant  this  acceptance  and  appropriation, 
because  the  revealed  truths  are  for  the  most  part  incom- 
prehensible to  our  reason  and  inaccessible  to  knowledge, 
but  can  be  appropriated  only  through  faith."     (p.  298.) 

Grace  does  not  act  asjainst  the  will.  Men  must  make 
an  effort  of  will  in  order  to  accept  it.  Faith  is  a  free 
acceptance,  an  appropriation  of  incomprehensible  truths. 
Involuntarily  there  arises  the  question  :  how  does  the 
appropriation  take  place  ?  Through  reason,  or  through 
the  will  ?     Impossibly  through  reason,  since  the  truths 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  363 

are  iucomprehensible ;  consequently  through  the  will. 
What,  then,  is  meant  liy  "  to  appropriate  by  an  effort  of 
will"?  Speaking  plainly,  it  means  "to  obey."  Thus 
faith,  according  to  this  definition,  is  reduced  to  obedience. 
Precisely  in  this  way  the  word  "  faith  "  is  understood  in 
the  Theology,  though  farther  down,  to  obscure  the  defini- 
tion, another  misty  definition  is  made,  in  which  faith  is 
mixed  up  with  charity  and  hope.     (p.  301.) 

"  The  necessity  of  faith  for  our  sanctification  and  salva- 
tion is  comprehensible  also  from  considerations  of  reason. 
Without  faith  we  cannot  appropriate  to  ourselves  the 
truths  of  the  divine  revelation ;  consequently  we  shall 
not  know  what  God  has  done  for  our  salvation,  nor  what 
we  are  obliged  to  do.  In  this  manner  revelation,  together 
with  the  whole  house-management  of  salvation,  will  re- 
main foreign  to  us,  and  we  shall  be  foreign  to  revelation 
and  salvation.  In  believing  in  Christ  the  Saviour  and  in 
his  revealed  word,  we,  so  to  speak,  open  our  soul  for  all 
divine  actions  of  salvation  upon  us ;  and  in  not  believing, 
we  shut  ourselves  up  against  these  actions,  and  repel  the 
divine  assistance.  For  this  reason,  although  faith  is  roused 
in  us  by  premonitory  grace  and  in  its  origin  is  a  divine 
gift,  it  becomes  on  our  part,  the  moment  it  is  germinated 
in  us,  with  our  free  consent,  the  first  instrument  for  the 
actual  acceptance  in  our  soul  of  the  saving  grace,  or  of 
the  divine  powers  that  pertain  unto  life  and  godliness 
(2  Peter  i.  3),  the  very  first  condition  for  our  regeneration, 
sanctification,  and  salvation  through  grace."  (pp.  303  and 
304.) 

Heretofore  I  understood  faith  as  the  foundation  of 
man's  whole  activity,  but  here  faith  is  spoken  of  as  an 
activity.  Involuntarily  the  question  arises:  on  what 
is  the  activity  based,  which  is  seeking  the  faith  and 
even  choosing  in  advance  the  faith,  which  it  is  seeking  ? 
Strangest  of  all  is  the  fact  that  nothing  has  been  said 
about  faith  so  long  as  the  revealed,  fundamental  truths 


364  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

of  faith  about  God,  creation,  man,  soul  (for  it  is  necessary 
to  believe  in  all  that)  were  expounded ;  nothing  was  said 
about  faith,  but  here,  where  it  behoves  the  Theology  to 
expound  about  sanctification  and  reestablishment,  which 
do  not  exist,  it  suddenly  becomes  necessary  to  define 
faith,  and  unexpectedly  faith  is  defined,  not  as  the  knowl- 
edge of  God,  but  as  confidence  in  what  the  hierarchs  say. 
Indeed,  under  the  word  "  faith  "  the  Theology  understands 
something  quite  different  from  what  it  is  generally  under- 
stood to  mean.  This  is  seen  in  the  clearest  and  quickest 
way  from  the  following  passage  of  Filar^t's  Catechism. 
There  is  there  a  question  about  which  is  more  necessary, 
faith  or  good  works.  And  the  answer  is  :  "  Faith,  because 
Scripture  says.  Without  faith  it  is  impossible  to  please 
God."  And  immediately  after  that  comes  the  question : 
"  Why  must  good  works  be  inseparable  from  this  faith  ?  " 
And  the  answer :  "  Because  it  says,  Faith  without  works 
is  dead."  The  second  answer  to  the  question  as  to  why 
good  works  must  be  inseparable  from  faith,  because  faith 
without  works  is  dead,  destroys  the  separation  of  faith  from 
good  works.  If  faith  cannot  exist  without  good  works, 
why  then  separate  them,  and  say :  (1)  faith,  and  (2)  good 
works.     This  logical  blunder  is  not  an  accidental  one. 

The  same  intentional  blunder  is  repeated  in  the  The- 
ology. It  is  clear  that  by  the  word  "  faith  "  the  Theology 
does  not  want  to  understand  what  the  word  actually 
means,  not  what  Paul  and  the  Eastern  Patriarchs  under- 
stand by  it,  and  what  we  understand  by  it.  "  Faith  is  the 
substance  of  things  hoped  for,  the  evidence  of  things  not 
seen,  that  is,  a  trust  in  the  unseen  as  though  it  were  seen, 
in  what  is  wished  and  waited  for,  as  if  it  were  present," 
says  Paul.  Paul  says  nothing  about  this  evidence  and 
hope  being  communicated  by  any  one.  "  By  faith  we 
mean  the  correct  knowledge  of  God  and  of  divine  sub- 
jects," say  the  Eastern  Patriarchs.  "  Nobody  can  be 
saved  without  faith,"  they  say  further  on.     "  Faith  is  the 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  365. 

substance  of  things  hoped  for,  the  evidence  of  things  not 
seen,  and  a  correct  understanding  about  God."  The  same 
it  is  understood  by  all  men  to  be.  We  perish  in  this  life 
without  the  knowledge  of  God,  —  faith  gives  us  salvation. 
All  the  works  of  salvation  are  by  that  very  thing  good 
works,  and  all  good  works  are  good  only  because  they  are 
works  of  salvation,  which  result  from  our  knowledge  of 
God,  that  is,  from  faith.  Faith  is  not  exactly  inseparable 
from  good  works,  but  is  the  only  cause  of  good  works ; 
but  good  works  are  inevitable  consequences  of  faith.  Con- 
sequently, it  would  seem  impossible  to  ask  which  is  more 
important :  faith  or  good  works  ?  that  is  the  same  as 
asking  which  is  more  important,  the  sun  or  its  light  ? 
And  yet  precisely  such  a  division  has  been  made  in  con- 
sequence of  having  given  to  faith  a  false,  narrow  definition, 
not  of  faith,  but  of  trust  and  obedience. 

The  separation  of  faith  from  works,  and  the  comparison 
between  them,  show  clearly  that  by  faith  is  understood 
something  different  from  the  definition  given  by  Paul 
and  by  the  Eastern  Patriarchs,  and  from  what  the  word 
itself  means,  but  what  it  signifies  here  is  what  the 
Eastern  Patriarchs  say  in  another  place :  "  We  believe  as 
we  are  taught  to  believe  (Section  10)."  It  is  evident  that 
in  Filar^t,  as  well  as  in  all  the  theological  works,  by  faith 
is  meant  only  an  external  agreement  with  what  theology 
preaches,  and  this  mere  agreement  is  regarded  as  neces- 
sary for  sanctification  and  salvation,  and  so  we  get  here  a 
definition  not  merely  of  faith  in  general,  but  at  the  same 
time  of  what  men  ought  to  believe  in,  and  an  explanation 
that  he  who  believes  will  get  great  advantages,  and  he 
who  does  not  believe  will  fare  badly.  Before  this,  in  the 
exposition  of  each  dogma,  there  was  an  exposition  of 
the  dogma,  say  of  God,  the  Trinity,  redemption,  the 
church,  and  the  causes  which  led  us  to  that  faith  were 
adduced,  but  nowhere  was  it  said  that  it  was  necessary 
to  believe  and  that  it  was  profitable  to  believe.     But  here, 


366  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

instead  of  proofs,  iustead  of  the  disclosure  of  truths,  we 
suddenly  hear  that  it  is  necessary  to  make  a  free  effort, 
not  to  oppose  oneself,  but  to  try  to  beheve,  and  that  he 
who  believes  will  be  saved,  and  he  who  does  not  believe 
will  perish. 

Before  this  were  disclosed  the  God-revealed  truths,  and 
it  was  assumed  that  this  disclosure  led  us  to  the  only  aim 
of  the  teaching,  to  faith,  that  is,  to  the  knowledge  of  God. 
Now  an  opposite  method  is  used :  we  are  told  that  in 
order  that  the  truth  about  sanctification  should  be  dis- 
closed to  us,  it  is  necessary  first  to  believe  in  that  sancti- 
fication :  believe,  and  then  everything  will  be  disclosed  to 
you.  But  does  not  the  whole  purpose  of  the  teaching 
consist  in  bringing  me  to  faith?  But  if  you  abandon 
that  path  of  the  disclosure  of  truths  which  lead  me  to 
faith,  and  tell  me  that  it  is  necessary  to  believe  what  you 
say,  as  any  man  would  say  it,  if  he  wanted  to  be  beheved, 
I  have  no  longer  any  right  to  believe.  If  it  comes  all  to 
a  question  of  trust,  my  trust  will  depend  only  on  the 
greater  or  lesser  respect  for  him  who  is  trying  to  convince 
me,  and  on  the  comparative  probability  of  the  evidence  of 
truth.  There  is,  however,  no  probability  of  this  evidence 
in  the  teaching  of  the  hierarchy,  as  we  have  seen  hereto- 
fore, and  so  only  one  thing  is  left  for  me  to  do :  to  become 
frightened  at  the  threats  which  are  uttered  against  me  for 
not  believing,  and,  out  of  fear,  to  submit  my  reason  to 
what  is  called  grace,  that  is,  to  what  the  hierarchy  teaches. 

This  attempt  to  submit  our  reason,  this  non-resistance 
to  grace,  we  have  all  tried ;  it  not  only  becomes  inactive, 
but  all  the  proofs  in  its  favour  mihtate  against  it,  the 
moment  a  man  seriously  searches  after  truth.  You  say 
that  I  shall  for  ever  ruin  my  soul  if  I  do  not  believe  you, 
but  I  do  not  believe  you  for  the  very  reason  that  I  am 
afraid  that  I  may  ruin  my  soul  for  ever.  Especially  now, 
when,  after  analyzing  this  article,  it  has  become  clear  to 
me  that  the  Theology,  in  taking  up  that  which  is  most 


CRITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY  367 

precious  and  important  to  it,  the  eRtal)lisliment  of  the 
sacraments,  has  itself  declined  to  ascribe  any  meaning  to 
that  institution,  and  has  been  unable  to  justify  it  by  any- 
thing but  a  naive  assertion  that  it  is  necessary  to  believe 
that  it  is  so. 

By  reducing  in  this  manner  the  conception  of  faith  to 
trust  and  obedience,  and  by  dividing  the  inseparable,  the 
Theology  has  involuntarily  arrived  at  the  question  about 
the  relation  to  each  other  of  these  two  imaginary,  unthink- 
able conceptions  of  faith,  trust  in  what  you  are  told,  and 
good  works,  which  are  independent  of  faith.  The  fol- 
lowing Art.  198  analyzes  the  relation  of  these  two 
imaginary  conceptions. 

In  order  to  understand  the  following  article,  it  is  nec- 
essary to  keep  in  mind  that  since  the  earliest  times  when 
the  false  conception  of  trust  in  place  of  faith  was  intro- 
duced, there  has  arisen  the  question  as  to  what  saves, 
whether  faith,  or  good  works,  and  that  those  who  have 
confessed  this  teaching  have  since  the  earliest  times  been 
divided  into  two  hostile  camps.  Some  say  that  faith 
saves,  and  others  say  that  works  save.  Our  Theology, 
with  its  customary  method  and  complete  freedom  from 
all  bonds  of  logic,  affirms  that  both  save.  And  here  is 
the  import  of  the  following  198th  article: 

"  However,  no  matter  how  great  may  be  the  value  of 
faith,  which  embraces  in  its  broader  sense  both  hope  and 
charity,  and  although  this  faith  is  the  first  condition  for 
the  appropriation  by  man  of  Christ's  deserts,  —  it  alone 
is  not  sufficient  for  its  aim.  By  faith  alone  a  man  may 
receive  his  justification  and  cleanse  himself  from  sin  in 
the  sacrament  of  baptism,  only  wlien  he  just  enters  the 
kingdom  of  Christ's  grace :  he  may  after  that  receive 
the  gifts  of  grace  through  the  other  sacraments  of  the 
church.  But,  that  he  may  be  able,  after  having  entered 
the  kingdom  of  grace,  to  preserve  the  righteousness  and 
purity  which  he  has  acquired  in  baptism ;  that  he  may  be 


368  CRITIQUE    OP    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

able  to  make  use  of  the  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  which 
he  has  received  through  all  the  other  sacraments  ;  that  he 
may  be  able  to  strengthen  himself  in  his  Christian  life 
and  gradually  rise  in  Christian  sanctity  ;  that,  finally,  he 
may  be  able^  after  having  completed  his  terrestrial  activity, 
to  appear  as  justified  and  sanctified  at  the  terrible  judg- 
ment of  Christ,  —  for  all  that,  in  addition  to  faith,  he 
needs  good  works,  that  is,  those  in  which  faith,  hope,  and 
charity,  which  abide  in  the  soul  of  a  Christian,  are  ex- 
pressed in  an  external  manner,  as  in  their  fruits,  and 
which  may  serve  as  a  precise  execution  of  the  divine 
will,  which  has  been  imparted  to  us  in  the  Gospel  law." 
(p.  305.) 

After  that  are  adduced  proofs  from  Holy  Scripture, 
which  directly  deny  the  whole  preceding  division  into 
faith  and  works,  and  the  preeminence  of  faith  over 
works : 

"  (a)  That  faith  alone  without  works  is  insufficient  for 
salvation,  is  testified  :  (aa)  by  Christ  the  Saviour  himself : 
Not  every  one  that  saith  unto  me.  Lord,  Lord,  shall  enter 
into  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ;  but  he  that  doeth  the  will  of 
my  Father  which  is  in  heaven  (Matt.  vii.  21 ;  cf.  xvi.  27) ; 
(J)h)  by  Apostle  James :  Ye  see  then  how  that  by  works 
a  man  is  justified,  and  not  by  faith  only  (James  ii.  24) ; 
(cc)  by  Apostle  John :  He  that  saith,  I  know  him,  and 
keepeth  not  his  commandments,  is  a  liar,  and  the  truth  is 
not  in  him  (1  John  ii.  4)  ;  (dd)  by  Apostle  Paul :  For  not 
the  hearers  of  the  law  are  just  before  God,  but  the  doers 
of  the  law  shall  be  justified  (Eom.  ii.  13);  (b)  that  a 
Christian  is  obliged  to  sliow  his  faith,  hope,  and  charity  in 
good  works :  Even  so  faith,  if  it  hath  not  works,  is  dead, 
being  alone  .  .  .  shew  me  thy  faith  without  thy  works. 
.  .  .  For  as  the  body  without  the  spirit  is  dead,  so  faith 
without  works  is  dead  also  (James  ii.  17,  18,  26);  every 
man  that  hath  this  hope  in  him  (in  our  Lord  Jesus) 
puritieth  himself,  even  as  he  is  pure  (1  John  iii.  3)  ;  he 


CKITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY  369 

fchat  hath  my  commandments,  and  keepeth  them,  he  it  is 
that  loveth  me  (John  xiv.  21)  ;  my  httle  children,  let  us 
not  love  in  word,  neither  in  tongue ;  but  in  deed  and  in 
truth  (1  John  iii.  18);  (c)  that  men  are  called  to  the 
kingdom  of  Christ's  grace  for  the  very  purpose  that  they 
may  do  good  works  :  For  we  are  his  workmanship,  created 
in  Christ  Jesus  unto  good  works,  which  God  hath  before 
ordained  that  we  should  walk  in  them  (J^ph.  ii.  10);  For 
the  grace  of  God  that  bringeth  salvation  hath  appeared  to 
all  men,  teaching  us  that,  denying  ungodliness  and  worldly 
lusts,  we  should  live  soberly,  righteously,  and  godly,  in 
this  present  world ;  looking  for  that  bles.sed  hope,  and  the 
glorious  appearing  of  the  great  God  and  our  Saviour  Jesus 
Christ ;  who  gave  himself  for  us,  that  he  might  redeem 
us  from  all  iniquity,  and  purify  unto  himself  a  peculiar 
people,  zealous  of  good  works  (Tit.  ii.  11-14.)"  (pp.  305 
and  306.) 

All  the  texts  quoted,  especially  those  from  the  evangel- 
ists, show  incoutestably  that  faith  cannot  be  separated 
from  good  works  and  that  works  are  the  results  of  faith, 
and  consequently  it  would  seem  that  this  article  directly 
destroys  the  whole  meaning  of  the  preceding  article  about 
the  first  meaning  of  faith.  But  the  Theology  is  not  in 
the  least  embarrassed  by  that.  In  the  first  article  it  con- 
tended against  all  the  Christians  who  recognized  salvation 
in  works,  and  here  it  contends  against  those  who  recog- 
nize it  in  faith,  and  calmly  destroys  its  own  propositions, 
which  does  not  keep  it  in  the  end  from  declaring  trium- 
phantly that  the  true  teaching  consists  in  accepting  both, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  one  excludes  the  other. 

Indeed,  no  matter  how  irregular  the  separation  of  faith 
from  works  is,  if  that  separation  has  once  taken  place  in 
the  conception  of  the  behevers,  it  is  naturally  possible  to 
affirm  that  either  faith  alone  or  works  alone  can  save.  If 
through  faith  we  become  completely  purified  and  holy, 
good  works  evidently  are  superfluous.     They  are  assumed 


370  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

in  themselves,  but  no  longer  form  an  aim.  But  if  we  are 
saved  by  an  effort  of  our  will,  as  was  said  in  the  preced- 
ing article,  it  is  obvious  that  first  of  all  there  must  be  that 
condition  of  will,  that  is,  the  act,  and  then  only  will  there 
be  faith  and  salvation.  Both  assertions  are  logical  and 
consistent,  but  our  hierarchy,  arming  itself  with  faith  in 
itself,  regards  any  logical  consistency  as  superfluous ;  it 
enunciates  both  the  contradictory  propositions  in  the  same 
breath.  The  concluding  words  of  the  article,  which  are  to 
prove  the  necessity  of  good  works,  prove  precisely  the 
opposite. 

"  We  cannot  do  good  works  except  with  the  cooperation 
of  divine  grace,  for  which  reason  they  are  called  the  fruits 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  (Gal.  v.  22).  But  since  in  the  per- 
formance of  good  works  we  need  the  participation  of  our 
free  will;  since  through  this  free  participation  in  good 
works  we  express  our  faith,  charity,  and  hope  in  God ; 
since  this  participation  frequently  costs  us  great  endeav- 
ours and  troubles  in  our  struggle  with  the  enemies  of 
our  salvation,  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil,  —  our 
Lord  God  has  been  pleased  to  take  our  good  works  into 
account,  and,  in  proportion  as  we  succeed  in  godliness 
with  the  aid  of  grace,  he  has  been  pleased  to  increase  in 
us  our  spiritual  gifts,  in  order  that  by  its  aid  we  may 
ascend  from  power  to  power,  from  glory  to  glory  (2  Cor. 
iii.  18)."     (p.  311.) 

The  whole  part  quoted  is  a  repetition  in  different  ex- 
pressions of  one  and  the  same  contradiction :  we  cannot 
do  good  works  except  through  grace,  but  for  that  purpose 
we  need  the  participation  of  our  free  will. 

The  moral  application  of  this  dogma  is  more  ludicrous 
than  ever.  Indeed,  it  is  very  hard  to  find  any  moral 
application  for  the  most  immoral  of  dogmas,  whose  aim 
it  is  to  justify  and  permit  vices  and  give  an  income  to  the 
hierarchy,  but  still  we  find  a  2}ropos :  (1)  to  pray  to  God 
that  he  may  give  us  grace ;  (2)  to  thank  God  ;  (3)  again  to 


CRITIQUE    OP    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  371 

pray  ;  (4)  to  follow  the  inspiration  of  grace ;  (5)  man  who 
has  become  as  innocent  as  Adam  ought  to  try  to  become 
innocent;  (6)  "let  us  walk  with  a  true  heart  in  the  sub- 
stance of  faith  to  the  throne  of  grace ! " 


XVI. 

Section  III.  Of  the  sacraments  of  the  church,  as  meaus 
through  which  divine  grace  is  communicated  to  us.  The 
sacraments  are  defined  as  follows : 

"(1)  A  sacrament  is  a  holy  action  which  under  a  visi- 
ble form  communicates  to  the  soul  of  the  believer  the 
invisible  grace  of  God,  an  action  which  was  established 
by  our  Lord,  and  by  which  every  one  of  the  believers 
receives  divine  grace. 

"  Cousequeutly  the  nature  of  the  sacraments  the  church 
assumes  to  consist  in  this,  that  there  are  sacramental 
actions  which  actually  communicate  divine  grace  to  the 
believer,  that  they  '  are  not  only  signs  of  divine  prom- 
ises, but  instruments  which  necessarily  act  through 
grace  upon  those  who  proceed  toward  them.'  As  essen- 
tial qualities  of  each  of  the  sacraments  it  regards :  (a)  the 
divine  establishment  of  the  sacrament,  (b)  some  visible  or 
sensual  image,  and  (c)  the  communication  of  invisible 
grace  by  the  sacrament  to  the  soul  of  the  believer." 
(p.  :313.) 

It  is  necessary  to  direct  the  attention  to  the  definition 
of  the  nature  of  the  sacraments  and  to  the  words  "  divine 
establishment  of  the  sacraments,"  in  order  that  we  may 
later  be  able  so  much  the  more  clearly  to  analyze  the 
deception  on  which  the  Theology  tries  to  establish  the 
dogma  of  the  sacraments.  Seven  sacraments  are  counted 
out,  and  the  heresies  of  all  the  other  Christians,  except  of 
our  hierarchy,  are  refuted.     Here  are  the  heresies : 

"(1)  Of  the  nature  of  the  sacraments.     According  to 

872 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  373 

Luther,  they  are  simple  signs  of  divine  promises  for  the 
sake  of  rousing  our  faith  in  Christ,  who  remits  sins. 
According  to  Calvin  and  Zwingli,  they  are  divine  signs, 
by  which  the  one  who  is  chosen  is  confirmed  in  the  faith 
into  which  he  is  received  and  in  the  divine  promises,  or, 
he  still  more  confirms  his  church  in  his  faith  than  he 
confirms  himself.  The  Socinians  and  Arminians  see  in 
the  sacraments  mere  external  rites,  by  which  the  Chris- 
tians differ  from  the  Gentiles.  The  Anabaptists  regard  the 
sacraments  as  allegorical  signs  of  spiritual  life.  The 
Swedenborgians  regard  them  as  symbols  of  a  mutual 
union  between  God  and  man.  The  Quakers  and  our 
Dukhobors  completely  reject  the  visible  side  of  the  sacra- 
ments, and  recognize  them  only  as  internal,  spiritual  ac- 
tions of  the  heavenly  light.  All  these  and  other  similar 
conceptions  about  the  sacraments,  which  are  held  by  vari- 
ous Protestant  sects,  with  all  their  differences,  agree  in 
this,  that  they  equally  reject  the  true  conception  about 
the  sacraments  as  external  sacramental  actions,  which 
actually  communicate  divine  grace  to  the  behevers,  and 
through  it  regenerate,  renovate,  and  sanctify  man.  (2) 
Of  the  number  of  sacraments.  As  though  not  satisfied 
with  the  mere  rejection  of  the  true  conception  about  the 
nature  and  efficacy  of  the  sacraments.  Protestantism  has 
extended  its  sacrilegious  hand  upon  this,  in  that  it  has 
diminished  the  number  of  sacraments,  and,  although  in 
the  beginning  the  Protestants  showed  a  great  diversity  of 
opinions  in  this  matter,  they  have  filially  agreed,  of  course 
each  sect  in  its  own  way,  to  recognize  only  two  sacra- 
ments :  baptism  and  the  eucharist.  Of  our  dissenters,  the 
so-called  Popeless  sectarians,  though  not  denying  that  seven 
sacraments  have  been  established,  are  satisfied  with  two 
only,  saying.  In  need  two  of  them  are  sufiicient,  baptism 
and  repentance,  and  the  others  are  not  necessary.'  (3)  Of 
the  conditions  for  the  performance  and  actuality  of  sac- 
raments.    According   to   Luther's    doctrine,  no   lawfully 


874  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

established  priest  or  bishop  is  needed  for  the  performance 
of  the  sacrameuts ;  the  sacraments  may  be  performed  by 
any  clergyman  or  layman,  by  either  man  or  woman,  and 
they  preserve  their  power,  no  matter  how  they  are  per- 
formed, even  without  any  intention  of  performing,  and 
even  with  ridicule  or  mystically.  A  full  lialf  of  our  dis- 
senters, who  form  the  Popeless  sect,  permit  laymen  also 
to  perform  the  sacraments;  but  the  other  half,  under 
the  name  of  the  Popish  sect,  leave  them  to  the  clergy, 
but  to  clergymen  who  are  either  under  the  ban  or  even 
entirely  unfrocked,  and  who  have  in  any  case  run  away 
from  the  Orthodox  Church,  and  have  renounced  it  for  the 
sake  of  joining  the  dissenting  sect.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  ancient  Donatists,  in  the  twelfth  century,  and  later 
the  Waldenses  and  the  Albigenses,  and  beginning  with  the 
fifteenth  century,  the  Wycliffites,  fell  into  the  opposite 
extreme,  asserting  that  for  the  performance  and  efficacy  of 
the  sacraments  not  only  a  legally  established  priest  but 
even  a  virtuous  priest  was  needed,  and  that  the  sacraments 
which  were  performed  by  a  tainted  servant  of  the  altar 
had  no  significance  whatever.  Finally  the  Eeformers  and 
Lutherans  invented  a  doctrine  that  the  efficacy  of  the  sac- 
raments depended  not  on  the  worth  and  inner  disposition 
of  the  performer  of  the  sacraments,  but  on  the  disposition 
and  faith  of  the  persons  who  received  the  sacraments,  so 
that  the  sacrament  is  a  sacrament  and  has  power  only 
during  its  acceptance  and  application  together  with  faith, 
and  that  when  it  is  not  used,  or  when  it  is  not  accepted 
with  faith,  it  is  not  a  sacrament  and  remains  sterile." 
(pp.  314-316.) 

The  Theology  does  not  refute  these  heresies,  but  pro- 
ceeds to  expound  its  doctrine  about  the  sacraments,  each 
separately.  I  will  analyze  each  one  of  these  so-called 
sacraments,  but  first  it  is  necessary  to  point  out  the  deceit 
of  the  specious  proof  of  the  divine  establishment  of  the 
sacraments,  which  alone  and  in  one  and  the  same  form 


UKlTiyUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  375 

will  be  applied  to  all  the  sacraments.  The  deception  con- 
sists in  the  following :  in  the  definition  of  the  sacrament 
it  was  said  that  it  is  an  external  action  which  communi- 
cates actual  grace,  that  is,  a  special  spiritual  power,  given 
to  him  who  receives  the  sacrament  as  established  by 
Christ,  and  then  it  is  pointed  out  that  Christ  has  pre- 
scribed to  the  believers  and  to  his  disciples  (but  only  in 
the  case  of  baptism)  a  certain  external  action,  and  from 
this  the  conclusion  is  drawn  that  Christ  has  established 
the  sacraments,  that  is,  such  actions  as,  when  they  are 
performed  by  the  hierarchy,  communicate  to  the  believers 
a  special  spiritual  power.  The  deception  consists  in  this, 
that  the  assertion  is  made  that  Christ  established  the  sac- 
rament, that  is,  an  external  action  which  communicates 
internal  grace,  or,  to  speak  more  correctly,  that  Christ 
established  the  dogma  of  the  sacrament,  that  is,  the  teach- 
ing that  the  immersion  into  water  or  the  eating  of  bread 
and  drinking  of  wine  communicates  some  especial  power 
to  him  who  is  immersed,  or  who  eats  bread  and  drinks 
wine.  In  order  to  prove  the  establishment  of  the  Chris- 
tian dogma  of  the  sacraments,  it  is  necessary  to  show  that 
Christ  ascribed  to  those  external  actions,  to  which  the  hier- 
archy points,  calling  them  sacraments,  those  properties 
which  the  hierarchy  ascribes  to  them,  whereas  there  is  not 
only  no  indication,  but  not  even  the  slightest  hint  at  such 
an  understanding  of  the  sacraments  as  practised  by  Christ. 
In  asserting  that  Christ  commanded  men  to  bathe  and 
sup  in  remembrance  of  him,  the  hierarchy  has  not  the 
slightest  foundation  for  the  assertion  that  Christ  estab- 
lished the  sacraments  of  baptism  and  of  the  eucharist  with 
all  the  meaning  wliich  the  hierarchy  ascribes  to  them, 
and  about  which  there  is,  and  there  can  be,  no  hint  in 
Christ's  teaching.  Thus  Art.  202  proves  the  divine  origin 
of  baptism  as  a  sacrament  by  pointing  out  that  Christ 
said  to  his  disciples  :  "  All  power  is  given  unto  me  in 
heaven   and   in   earth.     Go  ve  therefore   and    teach    all 


376  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

nations,  baptizing  them  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of 
the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  teaching  them  to  ob- 
serve all  tilings  whatsoever  I  have  commanded  you  :  and 
lo,  I  am  with  you  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  tlie  world 
(Matt,  xxviii.  18-20) ;  he  that  believeth  and  is  baptized, 
shall  be  saved ;  but  he  that  believeth  not,  shall  be 
damned  (Mark  xvi.  16)." 

In  the  first  place,  Mark  xvi.  16  is  a  later  addition  to 
the  Gospel,  like  that  other  tempting  addition  that  believers 
shall  take  up  serpents  and  not  be  hurt  by  drinking  deadly 
things.  Even  if  the  genuineness  of  this  passage  be  ad- 
mitted, neither  from  it,  nor  from  Matt,  xxviii.  19,  does  it  fol- 
low that  baptism  communicates  any  special  power  to  those 
who  are  baptized.  In  Matthew  men  are  to  be  baptized 
and  taught  to  observe  whatever  Christ  has  commanded  ; 
in  Mark  it  is  mentioned  that  he  who  believes  and  is 
baptized  shall  be  saved.  Where  is  there  the  estabhsh- 
ment  of  the  sacrament  such  as  it  is  defined  to  be  by  the 
Theology  ?  All  that  may  be  said  from  these  verses  in 
Matthew  and  in  Mark  in  favour  of  the  rite  of  bathing  is 
that  Christ  has  selected,  or,  more  correctly,  has  not 
rejected,  the  external  sign  of  bathing,  adopted  by  his  pred- 
ecessor John,  for  all  the  believers  in  his  teaching. 

But  everything  which  is  understood  by  the  hierarchy 
under  the  invisible  action  of  baptism  has  been  established 
by  that  hierarchy,  and  by  no  means  by  Christ.  That  may 
be  seen  from  the  subsequent  exposition  of  the  article,  in 
which  there  is  a  detailed  account  of  the  visible  and  the 
invisible  side  of  the  sacrament,  for  wdiich  no  indication 
can  be  found  in  Holy  Scripture. 

203.  The  visible  side  of  baptism.  There  is  a  detailed 
exposition  of  the  sacrament  about  what  to  bathe  in,  how 
many  times  to  immerse,  wdio  is  to  do  the  bathing,  and  what 
is  to  be  said  during  the  act.  The  proof  is  given  that 
those  who  do  differently  are  heretics,  and  that  grace  does 
not  operate  if  there  is  any  deviation  from  these  rules. 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOtOGY  377 

204.  The  invisible  actions  of  the  sacrament  of  baptism 
and  its  uurepeatedness.  Here  it  is  said  that  at  the  same 
time  "  that  the  catechumen  is  visibly  immersed  in  the 
waters  of  baptism,  M^ith  the  words,  '  The  slave  of  God  is 
recognized  ...  in  the  name  of  tlie  Father  and  the  Son  and 
the  Holy  Ghost,'  divine  grace  invisibly  operates  on  the 
whole  being  of  the  one  who  is  baptized  and  (1)  regenerates 
or  re-creates  him  ;  (2)  purifies  him  from  all  sin,  and  justifies 
and  sanctifies  him  ;  (8)  makes  him  a  child  of  God  and  a 
member  of  Christ's  body ;  (4)  saves  him  from  eternal 
punishment  for  sins  and  makes  him  an  inheritor  of  eter- 
nal life."  All  that  has  not  the  slightest  foundation  in 
Christ's  teaching. 

205.  The  necessity  of  baptism  for  all.  The  baptism 
of  babes.  Baptism  by  blood.  The  proof  is  given  that  it 
is  necessary  to  baptize  infants  because  they  are  cursed 
by  the  original  sin,  and  if  an  uubaptized  child  dies,  it  goes 
to  hell,  whereas  if  it  is  baptized  it  goes  to  heaven.  All 
that  is  proved  from  Holy  Scripture. 

206.  Who  may  perform  baptism,  and  what  is  de- 
manded of  those  who  are  baptized.  It  is  proved  that 
priests  ought  to  baptize,  but  deacons  may  sometimes,  and 
sometimes  even  simple  people  may.  All  that  is  proved 
from  Holy  Scripture.  To  be  baptized,  one  needs  faith,  the 
same  that  was  spoken  of  in  the  article  about  grace  and 
repentance.  When  infants  are  baptized,  the  sponsors 
must  guarantee  their  faith,  that  is,  pronounce  the  words 
of  the  creed  and  renounce  the  devil. 

It  is  evident  that  all  that  has  been  established,  not  by 
Christ,  but  by  one  of  the  many  diverging  hierarchies. 
After  baptism  follows  unction  with  chrism. 

207.  Connection  with  what  precedes;  the  place  of  the 
sacrament  of  unction  with  chrism  in  the  series  of  the  rest ; 
the  conception  about  this  sacrament,  and  its  name. 
"  Through  baptism  we  are  born  into  spiritual  life,  and 
pure  from  all  sin,  justified,  and  sanctified  do  we  enter  into 


378  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

Christ's  kingdom  of  grace.  But  as  a  natural  living  man, 
the  moment  he  is  born,  has  need  of  air,  light,  and  the  other 
external  assistances  and  powers  for  the  support  of  his  ex- 
istence, for  liis  gradual  strengthening,  and  for  his  growth, 
even  so  it  is  in  spiritual  life  :  immediately  after  man's 
birth  from  above,  he  has  need  of  the  grace-giving  powers 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  which  may  serve  for  him  as  spiritual 
air  and  light,  and  with  the  aid  of  which  he  may  not  only 
support  his  new  life,  but  also  constantly  strengthen  him- 
self and  grow.  It  is  these  divine  powers  which  pertain 
unto  life  and  godliness  (2  Peter  i.  3)  that  are  given  to 
each  who  is  reborn  in  baptism,  through  another  sacra- 
ment of  the  church,  through  the  sacrament  of  unction 
with  chrism."     (pp.  345  and  346.) 

It  is  proved  that  the  sacrament  of  unction  with  chrism 
was  established  by  Christ.     Here  are  the  proofs : 

"(1)  Gospel  history  proves  that  Christ  the  Saviour 
had  intended  and  promised  to  give  the  Holy  Ghost  to 
those  who  believed  in  him.  In  the  last  day,  that  great 
day  of  the  feast,  says  St.  John  the  Divine,  Jesus  stood 
and  cried,  saying.  If  any  man  thirst,  let  him  come  unto 
me,  and  drink.  He  that  believeth  on  me,  as  the  Scrip- 
ture hath  said,  out  of  his  belly  shall  flow  rivers  of  living 
water.  (But  tliis  spake  he  of  the  Spirit,  which  they  that 
believe  on  him  should  receive :  for  the  Holy  Ghost  was 
not  yet  given  ;  because  that  Jesus  was  not  yet  glorified) 
(John  vii.  37-39).  Here,  evidently,  mention  is  made  of 
gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  which  are  offered  to  and  conse- 
quently are  necessary  for  all  believers  in  our  Lord  Jesus, 
and  not  of  extraordinary  gifts,  which  are  communicated 
only  to  a  few  believers  for  special  purposes  (1  Cor.  xii. 
29,  and  so  forth),  though  it  does  not  say  by  what  visible 
mediation  the  necessary  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost  are  to 
be  transmitted  to  all  believers.  (2)  The  Book  of  the 
Apostolic  Acts  tells  us  that  after  Jesus  Christ  was  glori- 
fied, the  apostles  actually  gave  the  Holy  Ghost  to  those 


CRITIQUE   OF   DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY  379 

who  believed  in  him,  and  that  they  did  by  the  laying  on 
of  hands.  Such,  for  example,  is  the  following  case  :  Now 
when  the  apostles  which  were  at  Jerusalem  heard  that 
Samaria  had  received  the  word  of  God,  they  sent  unto 
them  Peter  and  John :  who,  when  they  were  come  down, 
prayed  for  them,  that  they  might  receive  the  Holy  Ghost : 
(for  as  yet  he  was  fallen  upon  none  of  them :  only  they 
were  baptized  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus).  Then 
laid  they  their  hands  on  them,  and  they  received  the 
Holy  Ghost  (Acts  viii.  14-17).  From  this  it  is  quite 
clear :  (a)  that  the  Holy  Ghost  was  communicated  by 
the  apostles,  not  through  baptism  (in  which  the  believers 
are  only  regenerated  or  re-created  by  the  Holy  Ghost  sud- 
denly, without  receiving  him  for  ever),  but  by  the  laying 
on  of  hands  on  the  one  who  is  baptized ;  (h)  that  by  this 
laying  on  of  hands  the  apostles  communicated  to  the 
believers  the  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  which  are  necessary 
for  all  who  have  received  baptism,  but  not  extraordinary 
gifts,  which  are  communicated  only  to  the  few ;  (c)  that 
this  laying  on  of  hands,  united  with  a  prayer  to  God 
about  sending  the  Holy  Ghost  down  on  those  who  are 
baptized,  should  form  a  special  sacrament,  distinct  from 
baptism,  and  (d)  finally,  that  this  sacrament,  distinct 
from  baptism,  has  a  divine  origin,  because  the  apostles  in 
all  their  words  and  acts,  in  spreading  the  Gospel  teaching, 
were  inspired  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  who  taught  them  every 
truth,  and  brought  to  their  remembrance  all  the  things 
which  the  Lord  Jesus  had  commanded  them  (John  xiv. 
26  ;  xvi.  13)."     (pp.  347  and  348.) 

The  deception  which  the  hierarchy  has  appropriated  to 
itself  for  the  purpose  of  assuring  the  flock  that  Christ 
has  established  the  sacraments  consists,  as  we  have  seen, 
in  taking  the  slightest  hint  given  by  Christ  or  the  apos- 
tles in  regard  to  some  external  action  and  ascribing  to  it 
the  improper  meaning  of  a  sacrament,  and  of  asserting 
that  Christ  has  established  that  sacrament.     But  this  de- 


380  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

ception  has  some  plausibility  only  in  the  case  of  baptism; 
in  the  other  cases  there  is  not  even  any  cause  for  decep- 
tion, and  the  hierarchy  has  to  invent  the  cause  itself,  as 
it  has  done  in  the  present  case.  Because  Christ  has  said, 
"  He  that  believeth  on  me,  as  the  scripture  hath  said,  out 
of  his  belly  shall  flow  rivers  of  living  water,"  it  follows 
that  all  have  to  be  anointed  with  oil,  and  that  Christ 
promises  a  special  advantage  from  it.  Then  follows  the 
exposition  of  the  dogma. 

209.  The  visible  side  of  the  sacrament  of  unction  with 
chrism.  The  visible  side  consists  in  this,  that  the  anoint- 
ing is  done  in  the  form  of  a  cross  and  certain  words  are 
pronounced.     Proofs  from  Holy  Scripture. 

210.  The  invisible  side  of  unction  with  chrism,  and  its 
unrepeatedness.  The  invisible  action  consists  in  this, 
that  the  Holy  Ghost  enters  into  him  who  is  being 
anointed,  and  there  enters  grace,  (1)  which  enlightens  in 
the  truth  of  faith,  (2)  confirms  in  godliness.  Mention  is 
made  that  in  former  days  they  began  to  prophesy  and 
speak  in  various  tongues  after  it,  but  now  that  does  not 
happen,  —  the  Holy  Ghost  merely  enters. 

211.  To  whom  the  sacrament  of  unction  with  chrism 
belongs,  and  when  it  is  to  be  performed.  A  priest,  and 
not  the  bishop  only,  may  anoint  with  chrism,  and  so  the 
Catholics  are  wrong,  and  that  is  proved  at  great  length. 

212.  Connection  with  the  preceding.  Conception  of 
the  sacrament  of  the  eucharist.  Its  superiority  and  dif- 
ferent appellations. 

"  Through  the  sacrament  of  baptism  we  enter  Christ's 
kingdom  of  grace  pure,  justified,  regenerated  for  spiritual 
life.  In  the  sacrament  of  unction  with  chrism  we  re- 
ceive in  ourselves  the  powers  of  grace,  which  are  neces- 
sary for  our  strengthening  and  growth  in  the  spiritual  hfe. 
Finally,  in  the  sacrament  of  the  eucharist  we  are  made 
worthy  for  the  same  high  purpose  of  partaking  of  the 
food  and  drink  which  gives  salvation,  —  the  pure  flesh 


CRITIQUE    OF    DUUMATIC    THEOLOGY  381 

aud  blood  of  our  Lord  Jesus,  and  most  sincerely  unite 
with  the  very  fountain  of  life  (Psalm  xxxvi.  9)."  (pp. 
366  and  367.) 

This  sacrament,  in  which  we  most  sincerely  unite  with 
God,  surpasses  all  the  others : 

"(1)  By  its  superabundance  of  mysteriousness  and 
incomprehensibility.  In  all  the  other  sacraments  the  in- 
comprehensibility consists  in  this,  that  under  a  certain 
visible  form  divine  grace  is  invisibly  operating  upon  man, 
but  the  substance  of  the  sacraments  itself,  for  example,  in 
baptism,  the  water,  in  unction  with  chrism,  the  chrism, 
remain  unchangeable.  Here,  on  the  contrary,  the  sub- 
stance itself  changes :  the  bread  and  the  wine,  which 
keep  their  form,  are  miraculously  chauged  into  the  true 
body  and  blood  of  our  Lord,  and  only  then,  when  they 
have  been  received  by  the  believers,  do  they  invisibly 
produce  in  them  their  actions  of  grace.  (2)  By  the 
superabundance  of  the  Lord's  love  for  us,  and  by  the 
extraordinary  grandeur  of  the  gift,  which  is  communicated 
to  us  in  this  sacrament.  In  the  other  sacraments  the 
Lord  Jesus  communicates  to  those  who  believe  in  him 
such  or  such  particular  gifts  of  saving  grace,  in  conformity 
with  the  substance  of  each  sacrament,  —  gifts  which  he 
acquired  for  men  by  his  death  on  the  cross.  But  here 
he  offers  as  food  for  his  believers  his  own  self,  his  own 
body  and  blood,  and  the  believers,  directly  uniting  with 
their  Lord  and  Saviour,  are  in  this  manner  united  with 
the  very  fountain  of  saving  grace.  (3)  Finally,  by  this, 
that  all  the  other  sacraments  are  only  sacraments  which 
act  savingly  upon  man,  but  the  eucharist  is  not  only  the 
most  incompreliensible  and  the  most  saving  of  the  sacra- 
ments, but  at  the  same  time  is  a  sacrifice  to  God,  a  sacri- 
fice which  is  brought  to  him  for  all  the  living  and  all  the 
dead,  and  gains  his  favour."     (pp.  367  and  368.) 

The  doctrine  about  tliis  sacrament  indeed  differs  from 
all  the  others.      It  differs  first  of  all  in  that  it  completely 


382  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

departs  from  the  former  definition  of  the  sacrament.  This 
sacrament,  according  to  the  Theology  :  (1)  not  only  gives 
power  to  him  who  receives  it,  but  also  represents  a  con- 
stantly repeated  miracle;  (2)  gives  us  God  to  be  eaten 
up ;  (3)  is  a  sacrifice  which  God  himself  brings  for  him- 
self, —  all  kinds  of  phenomena  which  do  not  enter  into 
the  first  definition.  According  to  the  definition  of  this 
sacrament,  it  not  only  communicates  grace  to  those  who 
receive  it,  but  is  also  a  transmutation  of  a  substance,  a 
conversion  of  God  into  food  for  men,  and  a  sacrifice  of 
God,  brought  by  God  himself.  But  that  does  not  disturb 
the  Theology.  It  goes  on  to  prove  that  this  especial 
sacrament  was  established  by  Christ. 

213.  The  divine  promise  of  the  sacrament  of  theeucha- 
rist,  and  its  very  establishment.  To  prove  that  this  sacra- 
ment was  established  by  Christ,  there  is  adduced  from  the 
Gospel  the  sixth  chapter  of  John,  the  words  from  the  holy 
supper,  and  the  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians.  In  looking 
through  the  chapter  of  John,  it  is  easy  to  see  that,  avoid- 
ing all  interpretation  and  sticking  to  the  literal  meaning, 
he,  his  flesh  and  blood,  is  the  bread  of  life,  that  he  gives 
that  bread  of  life  to  men,  and  that  he  who  will  not  eat 
that  bread  will  not  have  life.  Christ  promises  to  give  to 
men  the  bread  of  life,  which  he  calls  his  flesh  and  blood 
and,  without  saying  what  is  to  be  understood  by  his  flesh 
and  blood,  commands  men  to  eat  that  bread.  The  only 
conclusion  which  can  be  drawn  from  that  is  that  men 
must  eat  the  bread  which  Christ  has  called  his  flesh  and 
blood,  that  this  bread  exists  and  must  exist,  and  that 
therefore  men  must  seek  that  bread,  as  he  told  them  to 
do,  but  in  no  way  is  it  possible  to  draw  the  conclusion 
which  the  church  draws,  namely,  that  that  bread  is  the 
baked  leavened  bread  and  grape  wine,  not  every  kind  of 
bread  and  every  wine,  but  that  of  which  we  shall  be  told 
that  Christ  has  commanded  us  to  partake  of. 

The  other  place  on  which  is  baaed  the  sacrament  of 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    TIIEOLOGY  383 

the  eucharist  is  the  passage  from  the  Gospel  and  from 
the  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  where  it  says  that  Christ, 
bidding  his  disciples  farewell,  said  to  them :  "  Here  I 
break  bread  and  give  you  wine.  This  is  my  blood  and 
my  body,  which  is  given  to  save  you  from  sin.  Eat 
and  drink  all  of  you  !  "  Christ  before  his  death  said  to 
his  disciples,  as  he  broke  Ijread  and  handed  them  the 
cup :  "  This  wine  and  this  bread  are  my  flesh  and  my 
blood.  Drink  now  and  then  do  it  in  remembrance  of 
me ! "  From  these  words  it  may  be  concluded  that 
Christ,  bidding  his  disciples  farewell,  told  them  that  he 
was  dying  for  men  and  that  he  commanded  them  to  do 
hkewise,  that  is,  like  him  to  give  their  body  and  blood  for 
men  ;  it  is  possible  to  conclude  that  as  he  broke  bread  and 
gave  them  the  wine  he  commanded  them  to  think  of  him  ; 
it  is  possible  to  stick  to  the  most  literal  meaning  about 
the  flesh  and  blood  and  conclude  that  he  did  a  miracle 
before  his  disciples  and  gave  them,  in  the  form  of  bread 
and  wine,  his  own  body  to  eat  and  his  blood  to  drink  ;  it 
is  even  possible  to  conclude  that  he  commanded  his  dis- 
ciples to  perform  the  same  miracle,  that  is,  out  of  bread 
and  wine  to  make  the  body  and  blood  of  each  particular 
disciple ;  if  you  wish,  it  is  possible  even  to  conclude  the 
most  far-fetched  proposition,  that  he  commanded  them  to 
perform  a  miracle,  which  was,  to  make  Christ's  blood  and 
flesh  out  of  bread  and  wine, —  but  under  no  consideration 
is  it  possible  to  conclude  what  the  church  concludes  from 
it,  namely,  that  not  only  the  disciples,  whom  he  addressed, 
but  certain  men  at  a  certain  time  and  under  certain  con- 
ditions must  produce  something  similar  to  that  miracle, 
and  must  believe  and  assure  others  that  the  bread  and 
wine  which  they  offer  is  the  very  body  and  blood  of 
Christ ;  that,  in  receiving  tliis  bread  and  wine  with  the 
assurance  that  they  are  Christ's  body  and  blood,  men  are 
saved.  This  conclusion,  which  our  hierarchy  makes,  is 
absolutely   impossible,  the  more  so  since  the  hierarchy 


384  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

asserts  that  many  perform  this  miracle  irregularly.  It  is 
impossible  to  tell  when  this  miracle  is  performed  and 
when  not,  for  there  are  no  other  signs  of  that  miracle  but 
faith  in  the  fact  that  it  is  being  performed.  However,  it 
is  superfluous  to  prove  the  irrationalness  and  arbitrariness 
of  this  sacrament ;  it  is  sufficient  to  follow  out  the  conclu- 
sions to  which  the  Theology  leads  in  this  matter,  having 
accepted  that  conception  of  it,  in  order  that  the  absurd- 
ity of  this  sacrament  and  its  blasphemy  may  become 
manifest. 

214.  The  visible  side  of  the  sacrament  of  the  eucharist. 
The  visible  side  of  the  sacrament  consists  :  (1)  of  the  sub- 
stance employed  ;  (2)  of  the  sacramental  action,  and  (3) 
of  words  pronounced.  The  bread  used  in  it  must  be  of 
wheat,  pure  and  leavened.  There  are  five  pages  of  proof 
that  the  bread  must  be  leavened.  The  wine  must  be  made 
from  grapes.  There  are  described  all  the  manipulations 
which  the  priest  nmst  perform  during  it :  the  offertory, 
the  liturgy,  and  the  words  which  are  to  be  pronounced. 
It  also  mentions  which  words  are  the  most  important  of 
all. 

215.  The  invisible  essence  of  the  sacrament  of  the 
eucharist ;  the  actuality  of  the  presence  of  Jesus  Christ 
in  that  sacrament.  The  invisible  action  consists  in  this, 
that  not  symbohcally  (tuttikcos),  as  some  say,  not  with  a 
superabundance  of  grace,  as  others  say,  not  essentially 
(v7roa-raTiK0)<s),  not  through  the  penetration  of  the  bread 
(Kar'cVapTtcr/xov),  "  but  truly  and  actually,  so  that  after  the 
sanctitication  of  the  bread  and  wine,  the  bread  is  trans- 
formed, transubstantiated,  transnmted  into  the  true  body 
of  Christ,  which  was  born  in  Bethlehem  of  the  Ever- 
virgin,  was  baptized  in  the  Jordan,  suffered,  was  buried, 
was  raised  from  the  dead,  ascended  to  heaven,  sits  on  the 
right  of  God  the  Father,  is  to  appear  in  the  clouds  of 
heaven." 

Precisely  thus  must  we  believe. 


CRITIQUE    OB^    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  385 

There  follows  a  controversy.     All  are  wrong,  but : 

"  The  doctrine  of  the  Orthodox  Church  about  the  actu- 
ality of  the  presence  of  Jesus  Christ  in  the  sacrament  of 
the  eucharist  has  imperturbable  foundations  in  Holy 
Scripture,  as  well  as  in  Holy  Tradition."     (p.  386.) 

Here  is  a  sample  of  the  proofs  why  tliis  action  is  to  be 
understood  as  the  church  understands  it :  "  In  establish- 
ing the  eucharist,  the  Lord  established  the  greatest  sacra- 
ment of  the  New  Testament,  which  he  commanded  to  be 
performed  at  all  times  (Luke  xxii.  19,  20).  But  the  im- 
portance of  the  sacrament  necessary  for  our  salvation,  and 
the  nature  of  the  promise,  and  tlie  nature  of  the  com- 
mandment demanded  alike  that  the  clearest  and  most 
definite  language  be  used,  so  that  it  might  not  lead  to  any 
misunderstandings  in  so  important  a  matter." 

216.  The  manner  and  consequences  of  the  presence  of 
Jesus  Christ  in  the  sacrament  of  the  eucharist.  "(1)  If 
this  presence  consists,  as  we  have  seen,  in  this,  that  after 
the  sanctitication  of  the  holy  gifts,  there  are  present  in  the 
eucharist  and  are  communicated  to  the  believers  not  the 
bread  and  wine,  but  the  real  body  and  the  real  blood  of 
the  Lord,  —  that  does  not  mean  that  he  is  present  in  the 
sacrament,  that  he,  as  it  were,  penetrates  (according  to 
the  Lutheran  heresy)  the  bread  and  wine,  which  remain 
intact,  and  only  coexists  with  them  (in,  cum,  sub  pane) 
with  his  body  and  blood,  but  that  the  bread  and  wine  are 
transformed,  transubstantiated,  transmuted  into  the  very 
body  and  blood  of  the  Lord.  (2)  Although  the  bread 
and  wine  in  the  sacrament  of  the  eucharist  are  trans- 
formed properly  into  the  body  and  blood  of  the  Lord,  he 
is  present  in  this  sacrament,  not  with  his  body  and  blood 
alone,  but  with  his  whole  soul,  which  is  inseparably 
connected  with  this  body,  and  with  his  very  divinity, 
which  is  hypostatically  and  inseparably  connected  with 
his  humanity.  (3)  Although  the  Lord's  body  and  blood 
are  broken  in  the  sacrament  of  the  communion  and  are 


386  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY 

divided  up,  that  happens  only  with  the  forms  of  the  bread 
and  wine,  in  which  Christ's  body  and  blood  may  be  seen 
and  felt ;  in  themselves  they  are  completely  integral  and 
indivisible.  (4)  Similarly,  although  the  sacrament  of  the 
eucharist  is  performed  in  endless  places  of  the  world, 
Christ's  body  is  always  and  everywhere  one,  and  Christ's 
blood  is  always  and  everywhere  one,  and  everywhere  one 
and  the  same  Christ,  complete  God  and  complete  man, 
integrally  takes  part  in  it.  (5)  If  the  bread  and  wine 
through  the  sacramental  sanctification  is  transubstanti- 
ated into  the  real  body  and  blood  of  Christ  the  Saviour, 
that  means  that  from  the  time  of  the  sanctification  of  the 
holy  gifts  he  is  constantly  present  in  the  sacrament,  that 
is,  he  is  present  not  only  in  the  application  and  reception 
of  the  sacrament  by  the  believers,  as  the  Lutherans  assert, 
but  even  before  the  reception,  for  the  bread  and  wine, 
having  been  transubstantiated  into  Christ's  body  and 
blood,  no  longer  change  back  into  their  former  sub- 
stances, but  remain  the  body  and  blood  of  the  Lord 
for  ever,  independently  of  whether  they  will  be  used  by 
the  believers  or  not.  (6)  If  the  bread  and  wine  in  the 
holy,  life-giving  sacraments  are  the  real  body  and  the  real 
blood  of  our  Lord  Jesus,  then  these  sacraments  ought  to 
receive  the  same  honour  and  divine  worship  which  we  owe 
to  our  Lord  Jesus  himseK."     (pp.  396-402.) 

217.  Who  may  perform  the  sacraments  of  the  eucharist. 
Who  may  receive  the  communion,  and  wherein  the  prepara- 
tion for  it  is  to  consist. 

The  power  to  perform  this  sacrament  belongs  to  the 
bishop.  The  bishops  transfer  the  power  to  the  presbyters, 
but  deacons  may  not  perform  it;  nor  can  laymen.  But 
all,  even  babes,  may  receive  the  communion.  There  is  a 
controversy  about  that. 

218.  The  necessity  of  the  communion  of  the  eucharist, 
by  all  means  under  two  kinds,  and  the  fruits  of  the 
sacrament 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  387 

All  must  receive  the  communion.  Proofs.  Men  must 
be  communed  over  bread  and  wdne,  and  not  over  bread 
alone.  Again  controversy  and  proofs.  For  this  contro- 
versy Hus  was  burnt  and  his  followers  were  tortured,  I 
mention  only  in  words  the  controversy  and  the  proofs. 
But,  O  Lord,  what  a  terrible  book  would  be  that  history 
of  theology,  which  should  tell  about  all  the  violence, 
deceptions,  tortures,  murders,  which  have  taken  place 
because  of  each  of  these  controversies  !  As  one  now  reads 
about  these  controversies,  all  that  seems  so  unimportant 
and  ludicrous,  but  how  much  wrong  they  have  done  in 
the  world ! 

219.  The  eucharist  as  a  sacrifice:  (a)  the  verity  or 
actuahty  of  this  sacrifice.  "  In  believing  and  confessing 
that  the  most  holy  eucharist  is  a  true  sacrament,  the 
Orthodox  Church  believes  also  and  confesses,  in  spite  of 
the  aberrations  of  the  Protestants,  that  the  eucharist  is  at 
the  same  time  a  true  and  real  sacrifice,  that  is,  that  in  the 
eucharist  is  the  body  and  blood  of  our  Saviour,  which  on 
the  one  hand  are  offered  as  food  to  men,  and  on  the  other 
are  brought  as  a  sacrifice  to  God."     (p.  414.) 

220.  (h)  Eelation  of  this  sacrifice  to  the  sacrifice  on 
the  cross,  and  its  properties.  "  The  sacrifice  which  is 
brought  by  God  in  the  sacrament  of  the  eucharist  is  pre- 
cisely the  same  as  the  sacrifice  on  the  cross." 

Further  on  it  says  that  this  sacrifice  has  the  property 
of  propitiating  God,  and  so  it  is  necessary  immediately 
after  it,  and  as  soon  as  possible  to  remember  men.  That 
will  cause  God  to  help  men. 

"  Since  a  bloodless  sacrifice  has  the  power  of  propitiating 
and  inclining  God  toward  us,  it  naturally  has  the  power  to 
gain  for  us  various  benefits  from  God,  and,  being  propitia- 
tory, it  is  at  the  same  time  precatory  and  intercessory. 
For  this  reason  the  holy  church,  in  bringing  a  bloodless 
offering,  not  only  prays  God  to  remit  sins  and  save  the 
living  and  the  dead,  but  also  asks  God  for  all  kinds  of 


388  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

gifts,  spiritual  and  bodily,  which  are  necessary  for  human 
life." 

That  ends  the  exposition  of  the  sacrament  of  the 
eucharist.  It  took  up  eighty  pages.  Everything  which 
has  been  expounded  here,  the  whole  blasphemous  de- 
lirium, all  that  was  founded  by  Christ.  The  fall  is 
taking  place  with  terrible  celerity,  the  fall  from  the 
height  of  questions  into  the  bog  of  most  incompre- 
hensible superstitions.  The  first  fall  happened  when  it 
was  asserted  that  God  redeemed  us  in  a  visible  manner, 
and  now  the  last,  when  there  are  described  the  actions  of 
that  grace.  There  is  no  place  to  go  any  lower.  What  is 
the  difference  between  a  Chuvash,  who  smears  his  God 
with  cream,  and  an  Orthodox,  who  eats  a  small  piece  of 
his  God,  or  who  is  hastening  to  offer  five  kopeks,  that  his 
name  may  be  mentioned  in  a  certain  place  and  at  a  certain 
time  ?     Then  follows  the  sacrament  of  repentance. 

221.  Connection  with  the  preceding  ;  conception  of  the 
sacrament  of  repentance  and  its  various  appellations.  "  In 
the  three  saving  sacraments  of  the  church,  heretofore  dis- 
cussed by  us,  there  is  imparted  to  man  the  whole  abun- 
dance of  spiritual  gifts,  which  are  necessary  for  him  to 
become  a  Christian  and,  having  become  one,  to  abide 
in  Christian  godliness  and  attain  everlasting  happiness. 
Baptism  purifies  sinful  man  from  all  of  his  sins,  both 
the  original  and  the  voluntary,  and  introduces  him  into 
Christ's  kingdom  of  grace.  Unction  with  chrism  com- 
municates to  him  divine  powers  for  his  strengthening  and 
growth  in  the  life  of  grace.  The  eucharist  furnishes  him 
with  divine  food  and  unites  him  with  the  fountain  of 
life  and  of  grace.  But  since,  having  become  completely 
cleansed  from  all  sin  in  the  bath  of  baptism,  man  is  not 
freed  from  the  consequences  of  original  sin  and  inherited 
corruption,  such  as,  in  the  soul,  the  propensity  to  do 
evil,  and  in  the  body,  diseases  and  death  (Arts.  91-93), 
since  even  after  baptism,  being  a  Christian,  he  may  sin. 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  389 

and  even  very  often  (1  John  i.  8,  10),  and  be  subject  to 
diseases,  sometimes  very  serious  ones,  which  bring  him 
to  the  grave,  —  it  has  pleased  the  all-good  God  to  estab- 
lish in  his  church  two  other  sacraments,  as  two  saving 
remedies  for  his  ailing  members :  the  sacrament  of  re- 
pentance, which  remedies  our  spiritual  ailments,  and  the 
sacrament  of  unction  with  oil,  which  extends  its  saving 
action  over  the  bodily  ailments." 

But  why  only  over  the  ailments  ?  Did  we  not  hear 
before  that  the  redemption  freed  men  from  diseases  and 
death,  and  that  this  redemption  becomes  operative  through 
the  sacrament  of  unction  with  oil  ?  Consequently  unction 
with  oil  destroys  diseases  and  death.  But  laws  are  not 
written  for  the  Theology.  Unction  with  oil,  as  v;ill  be 
seen  later,  operates  against  diseases  and  death,  but  only  a 
tiny  little  bit. 

"  Repentance,  taken  in  the  sense  of  a  sacrament,  is  a 
sacramental  action  in  which  the  pastor  of  the  church,  by 
strength  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  absolves  the  repentant  Chris- 
tian from  all  sins  committed  by  him  after  his  baptism,  so 
that  the  Christian  again  becomes  innocent  and  sanctified, 
such  as  he  came  out  of  the  waters  of  baptism."  (pp.  425 
and  426.) 

From  the  standpoint  of  the  church,  what  is  important 
in  this  sacrament  is  not  the  humility  with  which  the 
repentant  man  approaches  it,  not  that  verification  of  him- 
self, but  only  that  purification  from  sin  which  the  hier- 
archy dispenses  by  force  of  an  imaginary  power.  I  even 
wonder  why  the  church  does  not  entirely  abolish  this 
sacrament,  substituting  for  it  that  remissory  prayer,  which 
it  has  introduced  and  which  is  said  over  the  dead :  "  I, 
unworthy  man,  by  force  of  the  power  given  to  me,  remit 
your  sins."  The  church  sees  only  this  external  imaginary 
purification  and  cares  only  for  it,  that  is,  it  sees  only  the 
external  action  to  which  it  ascribes  a  curative  significance. 
What  is  taking  place  in  the  soul  of  the  repentant  sinner 


390  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

is  of  no  consequence  to  it.  Though  there  are  added  cer- 
tain reflections  about  how  the  repentant  sinner  is  to 
approach  the  sacrament,  they  are  given  only  en  passant 
and  are  no  important  condition  under  which  the  imaginary 
purification  takes  place.  The  whole  matter  is  in  the  im- 
aginary purification  over  which  the  hierarchy  has  the 
power.  The  proof  is  given,  as  in  the  case  of  all  the  other 
sacraments,  that  it  was  established  by  Christ,  but,  as  in. 
all  sacraments,  there  is  not  the  slightest  proof  that  Christ 
uttered  the  words  which  he  spoke,  no  matter  how  we  may 
understand  them,  having  the  sacraments  in  view. 

222.  The  divine  establishment  and  the  efficacy  of  the 
sacrament  of  repentance.  To  prove  this  imaginary  power, 
there  are  adduced  the  words  of  Matthew  (xviii.  17,  18), 
which  are  explained  in  this  sense,  that  the  pastors  have 
always  enjoyed  the  divinely  given  right  to  bind  and 
loose.  The  hierarchy  understands  these  words  to  mean 
that  it  has  the  right  to  remit  sins,  and  everything  is  based 
on  that  conversation :  And  if  he  shall  neglect  to  hear 
them,  tell  it  unto  the  church  :  but  if  he  neglect  to  hear 
the  church,  let  him  be  unto  thee  as  an  heathen  man  and 
a  publican.  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  Whatsoever  ye  shall 
bind  on  earth,  shall  be  bound  in  heaven  :  and  whatsoever 
ye  shall  loose  on  earth,  shall  be  loosed  in  heaven  (Matt, 
xviii.  17,  18). 

Here  is  the  whole  passage :  "  If  thy  brother  shall  tres- 
pass against  thee  (these  words  the  hierarchy  omits  in  order 
to  introduce  its  own  interpretation),  go  and  tell  him  his 
fault  between  thee  and  him  alone :  if  he  shall  hear  thee, 
thou  hast  gained  a  brother.  But  if  he  will  not  hear 
thee,  then  take  with  thee  one  or  two  more,  that  in  the 
mouth  of  two  or  three  witnesses  every  word  may  be 
established.  And  if  he  shall  neglect  to  hear  them,  tell  it 
unto  the  church :  but  if  he  neglect  to  hear  the  church,  let 
him  be  unto  thee  as  an  heatben  man  and  a  publican. 
Verily    I  say   unto   you,  Whatsoever   ye  shall  bind  on 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  391 

earth,  shall  be  bound  in  heaven :  and  whatsoever  ye 
shall  loose  on  earth,  shall  be  loosed  in  heaven  (Matt, 
xviii.  15-18)." 

This  clear  place,  which  is  given  as  an  instruction  for 
all  men,  is  expounded  topsyturvy  only  because  here  is 
used  the  word  iKKXrjo-ia,  asseml)ly,  which  later  has  received 
a  different  nieauing,  and  is  represented  as  a  confirmation 
of  an  imaginary  power  of  the  hierarchy,  which  is  that  of 
remitting  sius. 

But,  let  us  assume,  contrary  to  the  text  and  to  common 
sense,  that  these  words  were  addressed  by  Christ  not  to 
all  men,  but  exclusively  to  his  disciples ;  let  us  assume 
that  he  gave  them  the  power  to  remit  sins,  —  in  what 
way  does  from  that  result  the  sacrament  of  repentance, 
which  makes  each  who  receives  it  an  innocent  man  1 
Again  there  is  the  old  trick :  a  sacrament,  which  was 
established  after  Christ,  and  of  which  no  one  in  his  time 
could  have  had  any  conception,  is  ascribed  to  Christ. 
Then  follows  the  exposition  of  the  rules  of  that  sacrament. 

223.  Who  may  perform  the  sacrament  of  repentance, 
and  who  receives  it.  This  sacrament,  that  is,  the  remis- 
sion of  sius,  may  be  performed  only  by  the  priests. 

224.  What  is  demanded  of  those  who  approach  the 
sacrament  of  repentance  ?  Approaching  repentance  it  is 
necessary  to  have  :  (1)  contrition  for  sins.  There  is  even 
a  description  of  the  cliaracter  of  that  contrition  :  "  As 
regards  the  nature  of  the  contrition  respecting  the  sins,  it 
is  necessary  to  see  to  it  that  it  does  not  result  merely 
from  the  fear  of  punishment  for  the  sius,  not  from  the 
conceptions  in  general  of  the  deleterious  consequences  for 
us  arising  from  them  in  the  present  and  in  the  future  life, 
but  mainly  from  love  for  God,  whose  will  we  have  vio- 
lated, and  from  a  living  consciousness  that  with  our  sins 
we  have  offended  our  greatest  benefactor  and  Father,  have 
appeared  ungrateful  before  him,  and  have  become  un- 
worthy of  hilli;"  (2)  an  intention  of  nut  sinning  again; 


392  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

(3)  an  oral  confession  of  our  sins,  and  then  the  priest 
says :  "  Our  Lord  and  God  Jesus  Christ,  with  the  grace 
and  gifts  of  his  philanthropy,  may  forgive  thee,  my  child, 
all  thy  trespasses,  and  I,  unworthy  priest,  hy  the  power 
given  me  forgive  and  loose  thee  from  all  thy  sins,  in  the 
name  of  the  Father  and  the  Holy  Ghost.  Amen."  (p. 
437.) 

And  then  the  man  is  purified.  It  is  very  useful  and 
necessary  that  the  guiltiness  of  the  sins  should  be  loosed 
by  the  priest's  prayer  before  the  last  day.  But  it  does 
not  say  what  will  happen  if  there  is  not  that  contrition 
wliich  is  demanded,  when  there  is  not  the  firm  and  de- 
termined intention  not  to  sin  again,  while  the  priest  gives 
the  remission  of  sins ;  but  we  know  that  there  never  is 
that  contrition  which  is  demanded,  nor  that  intention  not 
to  sin  and  to  believe.  Thus  from  the  whole  description 
of  this  sacrament  of  the  church,  which  considers  all  its 
essence  to  consist  in  the  power  of  remitting  sins  through 
its  hierarchy,  we  get  a  kind  of  a  toy,  something  ridiculous, 
or,  at  least,  a  senseless  action. 

225.  The  visible  side  of  the  sacrament  of  repentance  ; 
its  invisible  actions,  and  its  extent. 

Here  it  is  proved  that  there  is  no  sin  that  could  not  be 
forgiven  by  the  hierarchy,  except  the  sin  of  not  believing 
in  what  the  hierarchy  teaches. 

226.  Penances,  their  origin  and  use  in  the  church. 
"  Under  the  name  of  penances  (eTrtri/xta)  are  meant  prohi- 
bitions or  punishments  (2  Cor.  ii.  6),  which,  according 
to  the  church  rules,  the  minister  of  the  church,  as  a 
spiritual  physician,  determines  in  the  case  of  certain 
penitent  Christians  for  the  sake  of  curing  their  moral 
ailments." 

This  power  the  hierarchy  has  received  from  God. 

227.  The  significance  of  the  penances. 

228.  The  incorrectness  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Catholic 
Church  about  the  indulgences.     For  twenty-two  pages  we 


CKITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    TUEOLOGY  393 

get  an  extended   controversy   with    the   Catholics  about 
penances    and    indulgences.     Penances  are  correctionary 
punishments,  and  not  punishments  of  revenge.     All  that 
is  proved  by  Holy  Scripture  against  the  Cathohcs,  who 
prove    the  opposite  from  the  same  Holy  Scripture.     In 
regard  to  the  indulgences,  the  question  stands  as  follows  : 
Christ  has  redeemed  the  whole  world  with  a  profit,  —  a 
surplus  is  left ;  besides,  the  priests  by  their  good  lives 
have  increased  this  surplus  so  that  there  is  now  a  big  pile 
of  goodness.     All  these  profits  are  at  the  service  of  the 
church.     With  these  profits,  which  are  hard  to  dispose  of, 
the  church,  all  the  time  guided  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  pays 
God  for  the  sins  of  its  members,  and  the  members  pay  to 
it  not  with  something  mysterious,  but  simply  with  cash. 
Now  this  doctrine  is  not  so  much  objected  to,  as  it  is  cor- 
rected.    Our  hierarchy  agrees  to  the  fact  that  the  church 
has  complete  charge  of  this  capital  and  with  this  capital 
pays  for  the  sins  of  men,  remitting  the  sins  to  these  men 
in  the  sacrament  of  repentance ;  but  the  controversy  is  as 
to  whether  the  church  or  its  head  may  arbitrarily  forgive 
these  sins  without  the  penitence  of  the  sinner  himself. 
The  Catholics  say  that  it  can,  our  men  say  that  it  cannot. 
Of  course,  there  is  no  sense  in  either  assertion,  just  as  there 
is  no  human  sense  in  the  question  itself ;  but  in  this  case, 
as  in  many  other  controversies  with  the  Catholics  and 
Protestants,  our  hierarchy,  if  it  has  any  distinguishing 
feature   at  all,  is  characterized  by  stupidity  and  by  an 
absolute  inability  to  express  itself  in  conformity  with  the 
laws  of  logic.     Precisely  the  same  happens  in  this  con- 
troversy.    The  Catholics  are  logically  more  correct.     If 
the  church  can  remit  sins  by  dint  of  its  power,  and  the 
church  is  always  holy,  why  should  it  not  pardon  robbers, 
as  indeed  all  the  churches  do?     After  that  follows  the 
sacrament  of  unction  with  oil. 

229.  Connection  with  the  preceding  ;  conception  of  unc- 
tion with  oil,  and  its  appellations.     "  The  sacrament  of 


394  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

repentance,  as  a  healing  of  grace,  is  intended  for  all 
Christians,  but  only  for  curing  their  spiritual  ailments. 
The  sacrament  of  unction  with  oil  is  another  healing 
of  salvation,  which  is  intended  for  Christians  who  are 
infirm  of  body,  and  has  for  its  purpose  the  healing  of  not 
only  their  spiritual,  but  also  their  bodily  infirmities," 
(p.  464.) 

Here  is  precisely  a  case  which  confirms  what  I  have 
more  than  once  said  about  the  characteristic  feature  of  our 
church,  —  its  stupidity.  It  was  said  before  that  repent- 
ance heals  the  soul  of  sins,  and  that  unction  with  oil  heals 
the  body  of  diseases  and  death.  It  would,  therefore,  be 
necessary  to  explain  why  unction  with  oil  cures  neither 
diseases  nor  death.  It  cannot  be  concealed  that  there 
is  no  such  cure.  About  the  soul  it  is  possible  to  say  what 
you  please,  but  here  that  cannot  be  done :  the  matter  is 
too  obvious  ;  it  is  necessary  either  not  to  say  anything 
about  its  ability  to  cure  death,  or  to  invent  something. 
The  Catholics  are  bound  by  logic,  and  so  they  have 
decided  that  this  sacrament  is  imparted  as  a  farewell 
ceremony  over  such  patients  as  are  sick  unto  death,  and 
call  it  the  extreme  unction.  But  our  church  does  not 
refute  its  power  to  cure,  and  has  not  invented  anything 
to  conceal  the  matter,  but,  as  always,  gets  out  of  the 
difficulty  by  saying  :  "  It  does  cure,  but  only  in  part, 
a  tmy  little  bit,  and  at  certain  times."  Then  follow 
proofs  of  the  divine  origin  of  the  sacrament. 

230.  The  divine  origin  of  the  sacrament  of  unction 
with  oil  and  its  efficacy.  There  is  not  even  a  single  hint 
in  the  Gospels  as  to  the  establishment  of  this  sacrament 
by  Jesus  Christ,  but  that  does  not  keep  the  Theology  from 
asserting  that  it  has  been  established  by  God  : 

"  Of  the  sacrament  of  unction  with  oil  distinct  mention 
is  made  in  Holy  Scripture  by  Apostle  James,  when  he 
instructs  the  Christians:  Is  any  among  you  afflicted?  let 
him  pray.     Is  any    merry  ?  let    him    sing    psalms,   and 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  395 

immediately  adds :  Is  any  sick  among  you  ?  let  him  call 
for  the  elders  of  the  church  ;  and  let  theiu  pray  over  him, 
anointing  him  with  oil  in  the  name  of  the  Lord ;  and  the 
prayer  of  ■  faith  shall  save  the  sick,  and  the  Lord  shall 
raise  him  up ;  and  if  he  have  committed  sins,  they  shall 
be  forgiven  him  (James  v.  14,  15).  From  these  words 
there  are  disclosed  to  us  at  once  the  divine  origin  and  its 
efficacy,  as  a  sacrament.  (1)  The  divine  origin:  for  on 
the  one  hand  it  is  evident  from  the  context  that  the 
apostle  does  not  speak  of  unction  with  oil,  as  of  something 
new,  which  the  Christians  did  not  know  before,  but  points 
out  to  them  this  means  of  healing,  as  something  which 
has  existed  before  and  which  was  universally  known  to 
them,  and  which  he  commands  them  to  use  in  case  of 
sickness.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  evident  that  the 
apostles  never  preached  anything  of  themselves  (Gal.  i. 
11,  12),  but  taught  only  what  they  had  been  commanded 
by  our  Lord  Jesus  (Matt,  xxviii.  20),  and  what  the 
Divine  Spirit  inspired  them  with  (John  xvi.  13) ;  and  it  is 
known  that  they  called  themselves  the  servants  of  Christ, 
and  stewards,  and  not  establishers,  of  divine  sacraments 
(1  Cor.  iv.  1).  Consequently  unction  with  oil,  which  is 
commanded  to  the  Christians  by  St.  James,  as  a  sacra- 
mental healing  of  diseases,  both  bodily  and  spiritual,  was 
commanded  by  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  himself  and  by  the 
Divine  Spirit.  We  do  not  find  any  statement  in  Scripture 
at  what  particular  time  our  Lord  established  this  sacrament, 
for  many  things  which  he  taught  and  did  on  earth  are 
not  transmitted  in  writing  (John  xxi.  25).  But  it  is 
most  natural  to  think  that  this  sacrament,  like  two  others 
(baptism  and  repentance),  through  which  remission  of  sins 
is  granted,  was  established  by  our  Lord  after  his  resur- 
rection, when  all  powder  was  given  unto  him  in  heaven  and 
in  earth  (Matt,  xxviii.  18),  and  when  he  showed  himself 
to  the  apostles  for  forty  days  and  spoke  to  them  of  the 
things  pertaining  to  the  kingdom  of  God  (Acts  i.  3),  that 


396  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

is,  of  the  establishment  of  his  church,  an  essential  part  of 
which  is  formed  by  the  sacraments."     (pp.  465,  466.) 

There  are  no  other  proofs.  What  is  striking  is  that  not 
only  are  there  no  foundations  for  any  sacrament,  but 
there  is  not  even  the  slightest  cause  for  this  particular 
sacrament;  none  the  less  it  is  proved  that  this,  too,  was 
founded  by  God. 

231.  To  whom  and  by  whom  the  sacrament  of  unction 
with  oil  may  be  communicated.  We  are  told  that  all  the 
sick,  and  not  merely  the  dying,  as  with  the  Catholics, 
may  be  anointed,  and  that  the  anointing  may  be  done  by 
priests,  still  better,  by  bishops.  Best  of  all  it  is  if  seven 
priests  do  the  anointing,  but  even  three,  or  one,  may  do  it. 

232.  The  visible  side  of  the  sacrament  of  unction  with 
oil,  and  its  invisible  actions  of  salvation. 

The  visible  side  consists  in  anointing  and  saying  pray- 
ers, and  the  invisible  side,  —  what  do  you  suppose  it  is  ? 
The  invisible  side  is  the  healing  of  bodily  infirmities. 

"  The  sacrament  of  unction  with  oil  is  established 
more  particularly  for  those  who  are  sick  in  body  :  conse- 
quently the  healing  of  bodily  ailments  forms  the  very 
first  saving  fruit  of  this  sacrament."     (p.  472.) 

The  healing  is  classed  with  the  invisible  side,  because, 
of  course,  unction  with  oil  does  not  produce  it.  The 
Theology  is  not  embarrassed,  but  says  outright  that  there 
is  a  cure,  but  it  is  invisible. 

"  This  action  does  not  always  follow  on  unction  with 
oil.  That  is  true.  But:  («)  at  times  it  actually  takes 
place  and  the  patient  slowly  gets  well  and  rises  from  his 
sick-bed.  More  frequently,  (h)  the  dangerously  sick  man 
receives,  at  least,  temporary  relief  from  disease  or  is 
strengthened  or  aroused  to  bear  it,  and  that  is  also  one  of 
the  aims  of  unction  with  oil,  for  the  verb  iyeipw  signifies 
not  only  '  raise  up,'  but  also  '  to  rouse,  to  encourage,  to 
strengthen.'  At  times,  however,  (c)  those  who  receive 
the  sacrament  of  unction  with  oil  do  not  receive  from  it 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  397 

a  healing  of  ailments,  perhaps  for  the  same  reason  that 
those  who  receive  the  sacrament  of  the  eucharist,  instead 
of  saving  fruits,  only  eat  and  drink  damnation  for  them- 
selves (1  Cor.  xi.  29),  that  is,  on  account  of  their  unworthi- 
ness,  on  account  of  an  absence  of  a  living  faith  in  our  Lord 
Jesus,  or  on  account  of  hard-heartedness.  Finally,  (d)  to 
wish  or  to  demand  that  each  time  when  a  man  is  receiving 
unction  with  oil  he  should  be  cured  of  his  diseases 
would  be  the  same  thing  as  demanding  that  he  should 
never  die ;  but  that  is  contrary  to  the  very  plan  of  our 
regeneration,  according  to  which  it  is  necessary  for  us  to 
depose  this  sinful,  mortal  body,  in  order  to  clothe  ourselves 
in  proper  time,  beyond  the  grave,  in  an  immortal  body. 
For  this  reason  every  man  who  approaches  the  sacrament 
of  unction  with  oil,  every  sick  person,  ought  entirely  to 
abandon  himself  to  the  will  of  God,  who  knows  better 
than  we,  to  whom  it  is  more  useful  to  send  down  a  cure 
and  prolong  his  life,  and  whose  life  is  to  be  cut  short 
before  its  time."     (pp.  472  and  473.) 

What  use  was  there  then  of  talking  about  the  cure  of 
diseases  and  of  death  ?  And  so  the  first  invisible  action 
is  the  non-existing  cure  of  diseases ,  the  second  is  the 
cure  of  spiritual  infirmities. 

After  that  there  is  a  refutal  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
Catholics,  which  ascribed  at  least  some  meaning  to  the  sac- 
rament ;  what  is  refuted  is  that  this  sacrament  is  meant 
as  a  farewell  action  before  death.  Then  follows  the  sixth 
sacrament,  established  by  God. 

233.  Connection  with  what  precedes.  Marriage  as  a 
divine  institution,  and  its  aim  ;  the  conception  of  marriage 
as  a  sacrament,  and  its  appellations.  "  Three  sacraments 
of  the  Orthodox  Church,  baptism,  unction  with  chrism, 
communion,  are  intended  for  all  men,  so  that  all  may 
become  Christians  and  then  abide  in  Christian  godliness 
and  obtain  everlasting  salvation.  Two  other  sacraments, 
repentance    and   unction   with    oil,  are   intended   for  all 


398  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY 

Christians  as  two  saving  remedies,  one,  in  case  of  spiritual 
infirmities,  and  the  other,  in  case  of  bodily  and,  at  the 
same  time,  spiritual  ailments.  But  there  are  two  more 
sacraments,  estabhshed  by  God,  which,  even  though  they 
are  not  predetermined  and  necessary  for  all  men  and 
though  they  are  not  necessary  directly  for  each  of  the 
members  of  the  church,  are  necessary  for  the  purposes  of 
the  church  in  general,  for  its  existence  and  flourishing 
condition.  Those  are:  (a)  the  sacrament  of  marriage, 
which  communicates  to  certain  persons  grace  for  the 
natural  procreation  of  children,  the  future  members  of 
the  church,  and  (b)  the  sacrament  of  priesthood,  which 
communicates  to  special  persons  the  grace  for  the  super- 
natural procreation  of  the  children  of  the  church  and  for 
their  education  for  the  eternal  life."     (pp.  475  and  476.) 

But,  according  to  its  definition,  a  sacrament  is  a  holy 
action  which  under  a  visible  form  communicates  to  the 
soul  of  the  behever  the  invisible  grace  of  God.  But 
the  procreation  of  children  is  not  an  invisible  grace. 
Besides,  in  defining  a  sacrament,  it  was  said :  "  For  the 
performance  of  a  sacrament  three  things  are  needed :  a 
proper  substance,  such  as  water  is  in  baptism,  bread  and 
wine  in  the  eucharist,  oil,  and  other  substances  according 
to  the  sacrament."     (p.  314.) 

Here  no  substance  is  needed.  Marriage  apparently 
does  not  fit  in  with  the  definition  of  a  sacrament,  and  in 
general  differs  from  all  the  other  sacraments  by  this 
essential  feature,  that  in  all  the  other  sacraments  (in- 
cluding priesthood)  by  sacrament  are  understood  external 
actions,  which  are  performed  over  something  which  is 
supposed  to  take  place,  which  is  not  connected  with  any- 
thing real,  and  which  is  entirely  useless,  whereas  here  by 
sacrament  are  meant  certain  external  actions,  which  are 
performed  over  something  real,  and  one  of  the  most 
important  acts  in  human  life.     The  Theology  says: 

"  Marriage  may  be  considered  from  two  sides  :  as  a  law 


CRITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY  399 

of  Nature,  or  as  a  divine  institution,  and  as  a  sacrament 
of  the  New  Testament  church,  which  now,  after  the  fall  of 
man,  sanctifies  this  law."     (p.  476.) 

The  sanctifying  sacrament  consists  in  this :  "  In  order 
to  sanctify,  uphft,  and  strengthen  the  law  of  matrimony, 
which  is  holy  and  pure  in  itself  as  to  its  origin  from  God 
and  as  to  its  purposes,  but  which  because  of  the  disturb- 
ance of  human  nature  has  fallen  under  the  harmful 
influence  of  sin  and  has  in  many  ways  been  distorted 
by  men  who  have  abandoned  themselves  to  sensuality, 
our  Lord  Jesus  has  been  pleased  to  establish  in  his  church 
a  special  sacrament,  that  of  marriage.  Under  the  name  of 
this  sacrament  is  understood  a  sacred  action  in  which 
to  the  contracting  parties,  who  before  the  church  make  a 
promise  of  mutual  conjugal  fidelity,  there  is  communicated 
from  above,  through  the  blessing  of  the  servant  of  the 
church,  divine  grace,  which  sanctifies  their  conjugal  union, 
elevates  it  to  an  image  of  Christ's  spiritual  union  with 
the  church,  and  then  cooperates  with  them  in  the  blessed 
acquisition  of  all  the  purposes  of  mamage."  (pp.  478 
and  479.) 

That  is,  in  connection  with  the  law  of  marriage,  which 
in  itself  is  holy,  the  hierarchy  finds  it  necessary  to  sanctify 
again. 

234,  A  divine  origin  of  the  sacrament  of  marriage,  as 
a  sacrament,  apparently  does  not,  and  cannot,  exist  in  the 
Gospels,  nor  is  there  anything  in  them  to  hitch  on  to,  and 
so  the  place  is  chosen  in  the  Gospel  where  the  word 
"  marriage  "  is  used.  That  place  about  the  marriage  in 
Cana  of  Galilee,  which  has  nothing  in  common  with  the 
establishment  of  marriage,  not  even  with  its  blessing  and 
approval,  is  taken  as  a  basis.  The  Theology  itself  feels, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  unction  with  oil,  that  there  is  nothing 
to  hitch  on  to,  and  so  it  savs : 

"  Of  when  and  how  the  Lord  established  the  sacrament 
of  marriage,  whether  when  he  was  present  at  the  marriage 


400  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

in  Cana  of  Galilee  (John  ii,  1-11),  or  when,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  well-known  question  of  the  Pharisees,  he 
disclosed  the  true  conception  about  marriage,  and  said, 
What  God  hath  joined  together,  let  no  man  put  asunder 
(Matt.  xix.  3-12),  or  after  his  resurrection,  when  for  forty- 
days  he  appeared  to  his  disciples,  and  spoke  to  them  of 
the  things  pertaining  to  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  that  is, 
of  what  had  refer^ce  to  the  establishment  of  his  church 
(Acts  i.  3),  the  Gospel  does  not  say  anything :  for  there 
are  many  other  things,  which  Jesus  did,  which  are  not 
written  in  these  books  (John  xx.  30 ;  xxi.  25)."  (p.  479.) 
But  that  is  the  very  reason  why  it  is  considered 
proved. 

235.  The  visible  side  of  marriage,  and  invisible  actions. 
The  visible  side  of  marriage  is  this,  that  groom  and  bride 
promise  to  be  husband  and  wife,  and  the  priest  pronounces 
certain  words.  The  invisible  side:  (1)  grace  sanctifies 
the  union,  as  of  Christ  with  the  church ;  (2)  strengthens, 
as  Christ  with  the  church ;  (3)  cooperates  in  the  per- 
formances of  the  obligations,  as  Christ  with  the  church. 
Suddenly  there  is  for  some  reason  introduced  the  com- 
parison of  Christ  and  the  church  with  husband  and  wife, 
and  in  that  the  invisible  side  of  the  sacrament  is  supposed 
to  lie. 

236.  Who  may  perform  the  sacrament  of  marriage,  and 
what  is  demanded  of  those  who  proceed  to  this  sacrament. 
Popes  may  unite  in  marriage ;  the  Orthodox  (or  at  least 
one  of  the  contracting  parties  an  Orthodox)  may  marry. 
All  others  do  not  marry,  but  only  cohabit. 

237.  The  properties  of  Christian  marriage,  sanctified 
by  the  sacrament.  One  may  marry  only  one  woman,  and 
divorce  is  granted  only  in  the  case  of  adultery.  All  that 
is  regarded  as  a  sacrament  founded  by  God  himself. 

Of  the  sacrament  of  priesthood. 

238.  Connection  with  the  preceding ;  the  priesthood, 
as  a  special  divinely  established  ministration  in  the  church 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  401 

(hierarchy),  and  its  three  degi-ees ;  conception  about  priest- 
hood as  a  sacrament. 

"  In  expounding  the  doctrine  of  the  sacraments,  we 
have  heretofore  remarked  in  the  case  of  each  of  them  that 
it  may  be  performed  and  communicated  to  the  believers 
only  by  the  pastors  of  the  church,  by  bishops  and  presby- 
ters. But  in  order  that  men  may  become  pastors  of 
Christ's  church  and  receive  the  power  to  perform  the 
sacraments,  the  Lord  has  established  a  special  sacrament, 
the  sacrament  of  priesthood."     (p.  490.) 

Indeed,  leaving  out  of  consideration  the  fact  that  of  all 
the  sacraments  not  one  has  been  established  by  Christ  as 
a  sacrament,  and  that  in  reference  to  four  of  them,  to 
unction  with  chrism,  repentance,  unction  with  oil,  and 
marriage,  not  even  the  slightest  reference  has  been  discov- 
ered, —  all  the  sacraments,  even  according  to  the  defini- 
tion of  the  church,  become  sacraments  only  when  they  are 
performed  by  pastors  of  the  church,  that  is,  by  true  pastors, 
and  so  all  the  preceding  sacraments  are  based  on  this  sacra- 
ment of  priesthood.  If  this  is  not  a  sacrament,  and  its 
origin  cannot  be  proved,  all  the  other  sacraments  fall  of 
themselves,  even  though  their  efficacy  may  be  proved. 
Farther  on  it  says : 

"  Priesthood  is  understood  in  two  senses,  as  a  special 
class  of  men,  a  special  ministration  in  the  church,  known 
under  the  name  of  hierarchy,  and  as  special  sacerdotal 
action,  by  which  men  are  consecrated  and  ordained  for 
this  ministration.  In  the  first  case,  we  have  already  dis- 
cussed the  priesthood,  and  we  have  seen  that  the  Lord 
himself  established  the  hierarchy,  or  the  order  of  pastors, 
whom  alone  he  has  empowered  to  be  teachers  in  the 
church,  performers  of  sacraments,  and  spiritual  stewards, 
and  that  he  has  by  no  means  permitted  all  the  believers 
to  assume  all  that."     (p.  490.) 

The  sacraments  may  be  performed  only  by  priests,  but, 
in  order  to  be  a  priest,  it  is  necessary  that  the  sacrament 


402  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

of  priesthood  be  performed  on  him.  In  the  preceding 
articles  it  was  said  that  every  sacrament  is  inefficacious,  if 
it  is  not  performed  by  real  priests.  In  the  explanations 
much  was  said  about  the  heretical  teachings  which  have  a 
false  priesthood.  Consequently  the  whole  strength,  not 
only  of  this  sacrament  of  priesthood,  but  of  all  other  as 
well,  lies  in  the  clear  proofs  that  the  priesthood  was 
established  by  Christ,  that  the  transmission  of  this  priest^ 
hood  was  established  by  him,  and  that  among  the  many 
existing  usurpating  priesthoods  the  one  under  discussion 
is  the  only  true  one.     And  so  we  get : 

239.  The  divine  establishment  and  efficacy  of  the  sac- 
rament of  priesthood.  The  proof  is  given  that  this 
sacrament  is  from  God.  Not  only  are  there  no  proofs  of 
the  establishment  of  this  sacrament,  but,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  sacraments  of  unction  with  chrism  and  with  oil, 
there  is  not  the  slightest  reference  to  this  sacrament  in  the 
Gospels.     Here  are  the  proofs  : 

"  The  divine  establishment  of  the  sacrament  of  priest- 
hood is  to  be  seen  from  the  actions  of  the  holy  apostles, 
who  themselves,  by  the  instruction  from  the  Holy  Ghost 
who  reminded  them  of  everything  which  the  Lord  Jesus 
commanded  them  (John  xiv.  26),  performed  this  sacra- 
ment, and  by  the  laying  on  of  hands  raised  to  the  three 
degrees  of  the  hierarchy."     (p.  491.) 

Then  follow  the  proofs  of  the  fathers  and  of  the  coun- 
cils, so  that  it  is  even  more  obvious  than  in  the  case 
of  the  previous  sacraments,  that  this  sacrament  was 
invented  by  the  hierarchy  independently  of  the  teaching 
of  Christ.     Then  follows  an  exposition  of  the  sacrament. 

240.  The  visible  side  of  the  sacrament ;  its  invisible 
action  and  unrepeatedness.  The  visible  side  of  the  sacra- 
ment consists  in  the  laying  on  of  hands  on  the  head,  and 
in  the  saying  certain  words. 

"The  invisible  action  of  the  sacrament  of  priesthood 
consists   in  this,  that  by  it,  after  the  prayer,  there  i§ 


CRITIQUE   OF   DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY  403 

actually  imparted  to  him  who  is  being  ordained  divine 
grace  to  correspond  to  liis  future  ministration,  —  the  grace 
of  priesthood."     (p.  495.) 

The  importance  of  the  sacrament  is  as  follows  : 

"  If  any  one  will  reflect  how  important  it  is  for  a  man, 
while  he  is  still  burdened  with  flesh  and  blood,  to  be  pres- 
ent near  the  blessed  and  immortal  essence,  he  will  see 
clearly  what  honour  the  gi\ace  of  the  Spirit  has  bestowed 
on  the  priests.  By  them  the  sacrifices  are  offered  and  all 
the  other  high  ministrations  are  performed,  which  have 
reference  to  our  dignity  and  salvation.  They  still  live 
and  move  about  upon  earth,  and  they  have  received  the 
power  which  God  has  granted  neither  to  the  angels,  nor  to 
the  archangels."  (p.  495.)  "  The  grace  of  priesthood, 
which  is  imparted  through  the  laying  on  of  hands,  though 
in  various  degrees,  upon  deacons,  presbyters,  and  bishops, 
and  which  vests  them  with  a  certain  measure  of  spiritual 
power,  abides  in  the  soul  of  each  of  them  unchangeably, 
for  which  re'ason  neither  a  bishop,  nor  a  presbyter,  nor  a 
deacon  is  a  second  time  ordained  for  the  same  dignity,  and 
the  sacrament  of  priesthood  is  regarded  as  being  unrepeat- 
able."    (p.  496.)     Controversies  about  it. 

241.  Who  may  perform  the  sacrament  of  priesthood, 
and  what  is  demanded  of  those  who  receive  it. 

"  According  to  the  teaching  of  the  Orthodox  Church, 
the  power  to  lay  on  hands  for  an  order  of  priesthood 
belongs  only  to  the  immediate  successors  of  the  apostles, 
the  bishops." 

Then  follow  long  controversies  about  when  this  laying 
on  of  hands  is  efficacious,  and  when  not.  Priests  must 
be :  "  (1)  Orthodox  Christians  ;  (2)  men  experienced  in  the 
word  of  faith  and  in  life,  according  to  the  righteous  word ; 
(3)  if  they  are  chosen  to  the  dignity  of  bishop,  they  must 
be  free  from  the  bonds  of  marriage  ;  but  if  they  are  chosen 
to  the  rank  of  presbyter  or  deacon,  they  may,  if  they  so 
wish,  live  in  a  condition  of  matrimony."     (p.  500.) 


404  CKITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

Then  there  comes  a  controversy  about  celibacy,  but  the 
question  as  to  how  it  is  proved  that  our  hierarchy  is  the 
true  successor  of  the  apostles,  and  not  one  of  the  other 
hierarcliies,  which  regard  themselves  as  such,  is  not  even 
mooted,  so  that  of  all  the  sacraments  the  one  on  which  all 
the  others  are  based  not  only  fails  to  be  proved  or  deter- 
mined, but  is  also  introduced  quite  arbitrarily  and  without 
the  least  sign  by  which  it  may  be  distinguished  from  any- 
thing resembling  it.  After  that  follows  a  division  which 
is  called  Division  VIII.  General  remarks  on  the  sacra- 
ments.    In  these  general  remarks  we  find  an  exposition  : 

243.  Of  the  nature  of  the  sacraments.  "  The  sacra- 
ments are  not  only  signs  of  divine  promises  for  the  pur- 
pose of  rousing  faith  in  men,  not  merely  simple  rites, 
which  distinguish  Christians  from  Gentiles,  not  only 
symbols  of  spiritual  life  and  so  forth,  as  the  heretics 
wrongly  think  (Art.  200),  but  sacramental  actions,  which 
under  some  visible  form  really  impart  to  the  believers  an 
invisible  grace  of  God ;  they  are  instruments  which  of 
necessity  operate  as  grace  on  those  who  approach  unto 
them."     (p.  505.) 

244.  On  the  septenary  number  of  the  sacraments.  It 
is  proved  that  there  are  precisely  seven  sacraments.  From 
these  proofs  the  very  opposite  is  clearly  demonstrated. 

"  After  that  we  must  not  be  misled  by  the  fact  that 
some  ancient  teachers,  as  the  need  arose,  or  in  conformity 
with  the  purpose  chosen  by  them,  or  for  some  other  rea- 
sons, speak  in  their  writings  now  of  two,  now  of  three,  and 
now  of  four  sacraments,  without  mentioning  the  rest.  It 
is  quite  wrong  to  conclude  from  that,  as  the  Protestants 
have  concluded,  that  the  ancient  church  recognized  only 
two  sacraments  (why  not  three  or  four  ?),  baptism  and  the 
eucharist,  for  it  is  known  that  other  teachers  of  the  church 
at  the  same  time  or  even  earlier  mentioned  also  all  the 
rest ;  for  it  is  known  that  the  same  teachers,  mentioning 
baptism  and  the  eucharist  by  name,  at  times  point  also  to 


CRITIC^UE    OF    DOGMATIC    TUEOLOGY  405 

other  similar  sacraments  and  in  various  passages  of  their 
writings  clearly  speak  separately  of  each  of  the  seven 
sacraments."     (pp.  511  and  512.) 

Any  one  who  has  read  church  history  knows  that 
there  were  seven  sacraments,  precisely  seven,  because 
there  are  seven  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  seven  candela- 
bra, seven  seals,  and  so  forth. 

245.  On  the  conditions  for  the  performance  and  effi- 
cacy of  the  sacraments.  For  the  performance  of  the 
sacraments,  that  is,  for  the  communication  of  grace  to 
the  believers,  are  needed:  "(1)  A  legally  ordained  pres- 
byter or  bishop ;  (2)  a  legal  (that  is,  according  to  the 
divine  ordainment)  sacramental  action  of  the  sacra- 
ments."    (pp.  513  and  514.) 

"  But,  on  the  other  hand,  many  heretics  have  wrongly 
thought :  (a)  that  for  the  performance  and  efficacy  of 
the  sacraments  is  needed  not  only  a  legally  ordained  min- 
ister of  the  church,  but  also  a  pious  servant,  so  that  the 
sacraments  performed  by  tainted  servants  of  the  altar 
have  no  significance,  or  (h)  that  the  actuaUty  and  effi- 
cacy of  each  sacrament  depends  on  the  faith  of  the  per- 
sons receiving  it,  so  that  it  is  a  sacrament  and  has  its  full 
power  only  during  the  time  of  its  reception  or  use  with 
faith,  and  that  when  not  used,  or  in  case  of  acceptance 
without  faith,  it  is  not  a  sacrament  and  remains  sterile 
(Art.  200).  (1)  The  first  is  wrong,  for  the  power  of 
grace  of  the  sacraments  depends  really  on  the  deserts 
and  the  will  of  Christ  the  Saviour,  who  himself  performs 
them  invisibly,  and  the  pastors  of  the  church  are  only 
his  servants  and  visible  instruments,  through  whom  he 
imparts  the  sacraments  to  men.  (2)  Wrong  is  also  the 
second  opinion,  which  assumes  that  the  power  and  actual- 
ity of  the  sacraments  is  in  complete  dependence  on  the 
faith  and  disposition  of  the  persons  who  receive  the  sac- 
raments."    (pp.  514-517.) 

That  is  clear.     The  sacraments  are  purely  external  ac- 


406  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

tions,  like  incantations  against  the  toothache  which  act 
upon  people,  and  there  is  no  sense  of  speaking  or  think- 
ing of  any  spiritual  side  either  on  the  part  of  the  one  who 
pronounces  the  incantation,  or  on  the  part  of  those  who 
are  being  cured.  It  is  necessary  to  make  certain  motions 
with  the  hands  and  feet,  and  grace  will  come  down, 

246.  Moral  application  of  the  dogma.  The  application 
of  the  dogma  concludes  the  section  about  the  sacraments. 
The  only  obvious  application  is  to  have  recourse  to  the 
hierarchy  for  sanctification  by  means  of  sacraments. 
The  whole  doctrine  about  the  sacraments,  after  it  has 
been  analyzed,  is  reduced  to  the  following:  among  the 
number  of  senseless,  discordant  followers  of  Christ  there 
are  some  who  consider  themselves  to  be  ordained  by 
those  men  who  themselves  have  been  ordained  by  the 
laying  on  of  hands,  who,  finally,  were  ordained  by  the 
apostles.  These  people  give  no  signs  of  their  right  of 
succession,  but  they  assert  that  the  grace  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  has  come  down  to  them,  and  that,  in  consequence 
of  it,  they  know  seven  actions  through  which  the  grace 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  descends  upon  people,  and  this  grace, 
though  it  is  not  determined  by  anything  visible,  they  are 
able  to  bring  down  on  people.  The  communication  of 
this  invisible  grace  by  these  men  is  in  reality  the  doc- 
trine about  the  sacraments. 


XVIL 

Chapter  II.  Of  God  as  the  Judge  and  Eetributer. 

Here  the  didactic  part  of  the  Theology  is  really  ended. 
The  doctrine  about  the  sacraments  is  the  aim  and  crown 
of  all.  It  is  necessary  to  prove  to  people  that  their  sal- 
vation does  not  lie  in  them,  but  depends  on  the  hierarchy, 
which  can  sanctify  aud  save  them.  All  men  have  to  do 
is  to  obey  and  seek  salvation ;  paying  the  clergy  for  it  in 
honours  and  money.  The  next  chapter  is  really  not  a 
teaching,  but  a  threat,  which  will  incite  the  flock  to  have 
recourse  to  the  hierarchy.  There  is  a  short  recapitula- 
tion of  the  doctrine  from  the  beginning. 

247.  Connection  with  the  preceding ;  conception  of 
God  as  the  Judge  and  Eetributer,  and  the  composition 
of  the  church  doctrine  about  it. 

"  For  the  full  rehabilitation  aud  salvation  of  fallen  man 
it  was  necessary  to  perform  three  great  acts :  (a)  to 
reconcile  the  sinner  with  God,  whom  he  has  infinitely 
offended  by  his  fall ;  (b)  to  cleanse  the  sinner  from  sins 
and  make  him  righteous  aud  holy ;  (c)  to  free  the  sinner 
from  the  punishments  themselves  for  his  sins,  and  to  pre- 
sent to  him  the  benefits  which  he  has  earned  in  accord- 
ance with  his  sanctity  (Art.  124).  The  first  act  the 
Lord  God  achieved  himself  without  our  participation, 
when  he  sent  down  upon  earth  his  only-begotten  Son, 
who,  having  become  incarnate  and  having  taken  upon 
himself  the  sins  of  the  whole  human  race,  has  by  his 
death  brought  full  satisfaction  to  eternal  justice,  and  in 
this  manner  has  not  only  redeemed  us  from  sins  and  from 

407 


408  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

punishments  for  sins,  but  has  also  made  us  partake  of 
the  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  of  eternal  happiness 
(Art.  153).  The  second  act  the  Lord  God  achieves  with 
our  cooperation.  He  has  founded  on  earth  his  holy- 
church  as  a  living  and  constant  instrument  for  our  puri- 
fication from  sin  and  for  our  sanctification ;  he  sends 
down  to  us  in  the  church  and  through  the  church  the 
grace  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  as  an  actual  force,  which  puri- 
fies us  from  sins  and  sanctifies  us ;  he  has  established 
various  sacraments  in  the  church  for  communicating  to 
us  the  various  gifts  of  this  saving  grace,  in  conformity 
with  all  the  needs  of  our  spiritual  life,  and  it  lies  with  us 
whether  we  shall  make  use,  or  not,  of  the  means  of  sanc- 
tification, which  God  offers  to  us."     (pp.  520  and  521.) 

God  took  pity  on  men  who  were  perishing  from  their 
evil  will,  and  redeemed  them.  But  the  condition  of  men 
after  the  redemption  remained  the  same  that  it  had  been 
in  the  time  of  Adam  and  the  patriarchs.  Just  as  they 
who  were  before  the  redemption  had  to  look  for  salva- 
tion, so  we  must  do,  who  come  after  the  redemption. 
The  difference  between  the  condition  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  that  of  grace  is  this,  that  then  there  did  not 
exist  the  mechanical  means  of  the  sacraments,  but  now 
it  exists.  The  difference  is  this,  that  Jacob  and  Abraham 
could  save  themselves  by  their  good  lives,  by  the  fulfil- 
ment of  God's  will  in  life,  and  now  we  can  be  saved 
through  sacraments. 

All  that  would  be  very  nice,  but  with  this  teaching,  it 
would  seem,  it  would  be  impossible  to  recognize  retribu- 
tion, because  retribution  results  from  the  absolutely  free 
activity  of  man,  while  with  salvation  through  the  sacra- 
ments man  is  not  free.  Salvation  through  good  works 
differs  from  any  other  in  that  it  is  absolutely  free.  A 
man  is  for  moral  good  as  free  on  the  cross  as  at  home ; 
but  the  salvation  through  sacraments  does  not  fully,  and 
sometimes  does  not  at  all,  depend  on  the  will  of  man,  so 


o 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  409 

that,  in  spite  of  the  whole  desire  to  be  baptized,  anointed, 
communed,  man  may  not  have  the  chance  to  be  so. 
Conse([uently  retribution  appears  as  unjust,  when  grace 
is  taken  into  consideration.  Adam  could  be  punished  for 
the  apple ;  he  could  have  eaten,  or  not  eaten  it ;  but  a 
punishment  because  a  man  had  no  chance  or  possibility 
to  be  baptized  or  to  commune,  such  a  punishment  des- 
troys the  idea  of  God's  justice,  and  that  is  precisely 
what  results  from  church  grace.  According  to  the  Old 
Testament,  God  is  represented  as  crude  and  cruel,  but 
none  the  less  just ;  according  to  the  new  grace,  as  the 
hierarchy  teaches  it,  he  is  represented  as  an  unjust  judge, 
as  one  gone  mad,  who  punishes  men  for  what  is  beyond 
their  will. 

Evidently  one  cannot  get  away  from  the  laws  of  rea- 
son. The  first  error,  or  lie,  of  the  redemption  led  up  to 
the  greater  lie  of  grace,  and  grace  led  to  a  still  greater  lie, 
to  the  faith  of  obedience,  and  tliis  again  to  the  mechanical 
actions  of  the  sacraments.  The  necessity  of  an  incitement 
for  the  performance  of  the  sacraments  led  up  to  retribu- 
tion, and  that  teaching  has  found  its  expression  in  a 
horrifying  monstrosity. 

God,  to  save  all  men,  gave  his  Son  up  to  execution,  and 
from  this  it  follows  that  if  a  pope  is  too  late  with  his  sac- 
rament when  I  am  dying,  I  shall  go,  if  not  directly  to  hell, 
somewhere  where  I  shall  be  much  worse  off  than  he  who 
has  stolen  a  lot  of  money  and  has  hired  a  pope  or  several 
popes  to  be  always  about  him.  That  is  not  a  misuse,  but 
a  direct  conclusion.  But  that  does  not  embarrass  the 
Theology.  It  says :  "  The  first  thing  is  that  God  has 
saved  us ;  the  second  thing  is  that  he  has  given  us  sacra- 
ments ;  the  third  thing  the  Lord  God  achieves  after  the 
performance  of  the  second,  which  he  achieves  with  our 
help :  he  then  appears  as  the  judge  of  men,  who  justly 
weighs  our  deserts,  whether  we  have  made  proper  use,  or 
not,  of  the  means  of  purification  from  sins  and  of  sanctifi- 


ilO  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

cation,  which  he  has  given  us  on  earth,  and  whether  we 
are  worthy,  or  not,  to  be  freed  from  punishments  for  sins 
and  to  receive  happiness ;  he  appears  thereupon  as  a  just 
Eetributer,  who  determines  the  due  part  for  each  man 
according  to  his  deserts."     (p.  521.) 

The  means  against  it  are  the  sacraments.  Then  follows 
the  usual  exposition.  In  the  retribution  all  three  persons 
of  the  Trinity  take  part. 

248.  The  circumstance  which  prepares  the  private  judg- 
ment. Man's  death.  Death  is  spoken  of  as  something 
new  and  unknown  to  anybody.  The  cause  of  death  is  the 
fall  of  the  first  man,  and  from  the  first  man  we  took  that 
habit.     All  that  is  proved. 

249.  The  actuality  of  the  private  judgment.  It  is 
proved  that  after  death  there  takes  place  a  private  judg- 
ment of  man  in  distinction  from  the  general  judgment. 
The  judgment,  that  is,  a  certain  process  of  investigation 
and  the  retribution  which  follows  from  it,  is  ascribed  to 
omniscient  and  all-good  God. 

250.  Representation  of  the  private  judgment:  teaching 
about  the  torments.  "  Holy  Scripture  does  not  tell  us 
how  a  private  judgment  takes  place.  But  an  objective 
representation  of  this  judgment,  based  mainly  on  Holy 
Tradition  and  in  agreement  with  Holy  Scripture,  we  find 
in  the  teaching  about  the  torments  (TtAwvia),  which  has 
existed  since  antiquity  in  the  Orthodox  Church."  (p. 
528.) 

The  torments  are  described  and  confirmed  by  Holy 
Scripture  on  ten  pages.  We  are  told  that  '•'  at  the  parting 
of  our  soul  from  our  body  there  wdll  arise  before  us,  on  the 
one  hand,  a  host  of  the  heavenly  powers,  and  on  the  other, 
the  powers  of  darkness,  the  evil  keepers  of  the  world,  the 
aerial  chiefs  of  torments,  the  inquisitors  and  arraigners  of 
our  deeds.  Upon  seeing  them,  the  soul  will  be  excited, 
and  will  be  convulsed  and  tremble,  and  in  confusion  and 
terror  will  seek  for  defence  among  the  angels  of  God ;  but 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY         411 

even  when  it  will  be  accepted  by  the  holy  angels,  and 
under  their  protection  will  flit  through  the  aerial  spaces 
and  rise  to  the  height,  it  will  encounter  various  torments, 
as  it  were  barriers  or  toll-gates  where  taxes  are  collected, 
which  will  bar  its  way  to  the  kingdom  and  will  stop  and 
arrest  its  striving  toward  it.  At  each  of  these  torments 
an  account  of  some  special  sins  will  be  demanded :  at  the 
first  torment,  of  the  sins  committed  by  means  of  the  lips 
and  mouth ;  at  the  second  torment,  of  the  sins  of  vision  ; 
at  the  third,  of  the  sins  of  hearing  ;  at  the  fourth,  of  the 
sins  of  smell ;  at  the  fifth,  of  all  lawlessness  and  abomi- 
nable deeds  done  by  means  of  the  hands.  To  the  other 
torments  belong  the  other  sins,  such  as  anger,  hatred, 
envy,  vanity,  and  pride.  ...  In  short,  every  passion,  every 
passion  of  the  soul,  every  sin  will  similarly  have  its  tor- 
mentors and  inquisitors."     (p.  529.) 

252,  Retribution  to  the  righteous  :  (a)  their  glorification 
in  heaven,  in  the  church  triumphant. 

"  Retribution  for  the  righteous,  by  the  will  of  the  heav- 
enly Judge,  also  has  two  forms :  (a)  their  glorification, 
though  not  yet  complete,  in  heaven,  in  the  church  trium- 
phant, and  (b)  their  glorification  upon  earth,  in  the  church 
militant."     (p.  531.) 

It  is  hard  to  understand  how  the  word  "  glorification  " 
occupies  such  an  important  place  in  the  teaching  of  the 
church,  especially  when  one  thinks  of  Christ's  teaching, 
which  is  constantly  directed  against  glory,  and  one  feels 
with  his  heart  that  the  love  of  glory,  of  glorification,  is  one 
of  the  most  petty  of  human  feelings.  I  can  understand  as 
a  reward  the  contemplation  of  God,  peace,  l^aradise,  Eden, 
even  Mohammed's  Paradise,  Nirvana  ;  but  in  order  to  un- 
derstand the  reward  in  glorification,  I  have  to  imagine 
myself  in  the  place  of  the  crudest  of  men  or  when  I  was 
only  fifteen  years  old.  But  the  Theology  regards  glorifi- 
cation as  a  great  reward.  This  glorification  is  represented 
to  consist  in  this,  that  wreaths  will  be  put  on  them  and 


412  CKITIQUE   OP   DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY 

that  they  will  be  in  honour  and  glory.     That  is  proved 
from  Holy  Scripture. 

253.  The  glorification  of  the  righteous  upon  earth,  in 
the  church  militant :  (aa)  the  worship  of  the  saints.  "  At 
the  same  time  that  the  righteous  Judge  and  Eetributer 
honours  the  righteous,  after  their  decease,  with  a  glorifica- 
tion, anticipatory  though  it  be,  in  heaven,  in  the  church 
triumphant,  he  honours  them  also  with  a  glorification 
upon  earth,  in  the   church  militant."     (p.  546.) 

This  glory  is  again  represented  in  the  form  of  wreaths, 
gold,  precious  stones,  obeisances,  censers,  singing,  masses, 
and  so  forth.  Then  follow  controversies  with  those  who 
do  not  consider  it  necessary  to  w^orship  the  saints  in  such 
a  way.     All  that  is  proved  from  Scripture. 

254.  (hb)  Invocation  of  the  saints,  "  Eespecting  the 
saints,  as  true  servants,  favourites,  and  friends  of  God, 
the  holy  church  at  the  same  time  invokes  them  in  its 
prayers,  not  as  some  gods,  who  might  help  us  by  their 
own  power,  but  as  our  intercessors  before  God,  the  only 
sources  and  distributers  of  all  the  gifts  and  favours  to  the 
creatures  (James  i.  17),  as  our  representatives  and  inter- 
cessors, who  have  the  power  of  mediation  from  Christ, 
who  alone  is  in  the  proper  sense  the  independent  mediator 
between  God  and  men,  who  gave  himself  a  ransom  for  all 
(1  Tim.  ii.  5,  6).  Holy  Scripture  teaches  us  that  dogma." 
(pp.  553  and  554.) 

It  is  a  dogma.  The  dogma  consists  in  this,  that :  {a) 
it  is  necessary  to  pray  to  the  saints,  (h)  that  the  saints 
hear  us,  (c)  that  they  pray  for  us. 

All  that  is  proved  by  Holy  Scripture,  and  the  proof  is 
concluded  by  an  excerpt  from  a  decree  of  a  council : 

"  If  any  one  does  not  confess  that  all  the  saints,  who 
have  been  since  eternity  and  who  have  pleased  God,  as 
before  the  law  so  also  under  the  law  and  under  grace,  are 
worthy  before  him  of  honour  in  their  souls  and  bodies,  or 
if  he  does  not  invoke  the  prayers  of  the  saints,  as  having 


CRITIQUE   OF   DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY  413 

the  permission  to  mediate  for  the  world,  according  to  the 
church  traditiou :  anathema." 

That  is,  obviously,  a  sufficient  proof, 

255.  (cc)  The  worship  of  holy  relics  and  of  other  re- 
mainders of  those  who  have  pleased  God.  Besides,  it  is 
necessary  also  to  glorify  the  relics  and  other  remainders 
of  the  saints.     That  is  proved : 

"  (a)  Because  when  a  dead  man  barely  touched  the 
body  of  Prophet  EUsha,  he  revived,  and  stood  up  on  his 
feet  (2  Kings  xiii.  21) ;  (c)  because  the  mantle  of  Elijah, 
which  was  left  by  him  to  Elisha,  with  its  touch  opened 
the  waters  of  the  Jordan  for  the  passage  of  the  latter 
prophet  (2  Kings  ii.  14) ;  that  even  the  handkerchiefs  and 
aprons  of  St.  Paul,  which  hi  his  absence  were  put  on  those 
who  suffered  from  diseases  or  were  possessed  by  devils, 
cured  the  diseases  and  drove  out  the  devils  (Acts  xix.  12). 
(2)  In  the  history  of  the  church  we  find  an  endless 
number  of  similar  miracles,  which  the  Lord  has  performed 
through  the  relics  and  other  remainders  of  the  saints  for 
all  those  who  had  recourse  to  them  with  faith. 

"  (3)  The  most  startling  miracle,  with  which  the  Lord 
has  glorified  the  bodies  of  many  saints,  is  their  incorrup- 
tibility. This  incorruptibility  of  the  holy  relics,  this 
exemption  of  theirs  through  the  miraculous  divine  action 
from  the  universal  law  of  corruption,  serving,  as  it  were, 
as  a  living  lesson  of  their  future  resurrection  and  as 
strong  incitement  to  us  to  worship  the  very  bodies  of  the 
saints  who  are  glorified  by  God  and  to  emulate  their  faith, 
is  not  subject  to  the  slightest  doubt.  In  Kiev  and  Nov- 
gorod, in  Moscov/  and  Vologda,  and  in  many  other  places 
of  our  divinely  guarded  country  openly  rest  many  incor- 
ruptible relics  of  saints,  and  by  the  incessant  miracles, 
which  are  wrousrht  on  those  who  have  recourse  to  them 
in  faith,  they  loudly  testify  to  the  truth  of  their  incorrup- 
tibility."    (pp.  563-567.) 

All  of  us  know  about  the  Duke  Decroix,  of  hundreds 


414  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

and  hundreds  of  incorruptible  bodies,  due  to  physical  con- 
ditions ;  we  know  that  accidentally  a  certain  Siberian 
bishop  did  not  decompose  and  now  is  lying  in  Kiev  in  a 
cellar,  waiting  for  the  opening  of  the  rehcs ;  we  know  of 
those  relics  that  are  kept  under  a  bushel,  about  the  scare- 
crows, with  which  pennies  are  gathered  in  for  the  hier- 
archy, and  whose  garments  are  clandestinely  changed  by 
the  members  of  the  hierarchy ;  we  know  about  the  oil 
which  is  poured  into  the  fragrance- spreading  heads.  Not 
a  single  student  of  a  seminary  nor  a  peasant  believes  in 
all  that,  so  what  sense  is  there  in  expounding  it  in  the 
Theology  as  a  dogma  ?  Even  if  there  were  in  the  Theology 
anything  resembling  a  disclosure  of  the  truths  of  faith, 
even  if  everything  were  sensible  and  correct  in  it,  such  an 
assertion  about  the  relics  would  invalidate  the  whole 
thing. 

The  proof  is  given  that  the  rehcs  and  all  kinds  of  hand- 
kerchiefs and  pantaloons  have  to  be  honoured  and  kissed, 
and  that  pennies  are  to  be  put  on  them,  and  the  whole 
concludes  with  a  decree  of  the  Seventh  (Ecumenical 
Council : 

"  And  thus,  those  who  dared  to  reject  the  rehcs  of  the 
martyrs,  which  they  knew  to  be  genuine  and  true :  if  they 
are  bishops  or  clergymen,  let  them  be  deposed;  if  they 
are  monks  or  laymen,  let  them  be  deprived  of  commun- 
ion."   (p.  570.) 

But  all  that  is  not  enough.  It  is  not  enough  to  substi- 
tute saints,  their  fingers  and  pantaloons,  in  the  place  of 
God.     We  need  still  the  images. 

256.  {(Id)  The  worship  of  the  holy  images.  The 
church  commands  us:  (a)  to  use  images  in  churches, 
houses,  and  streets ;  (h)  to  honour  them  with  the  burning 
and  offering  of  tapers ;  and  it  condemns :  {a)  the  ancient 
iconoclasts,  (h)  the  modern  Protestants,  {c)  those  who 
worship  them  as  though  they  were  gods.  There  begin 
proofs  and  controversies.     Those  controversies  have  cost 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  415 

much  malice,  many  executions,  much  blood.  Only  by  an 
absolute  departure  from  the  questions  of  faith  can  we  ex- 
plain those  controversies  and  those  assertions  and  proofs, 
which  are  adduced  in  the  book. 

"  III,  The  endless  signs  and  miracles  which  the  Lord 
has  been  pleased  to  perform  through  the  images  for  the 
behevers  serve  as  a  new  incitement  for  the  worship  of  the 
holy  images.  With  accounts  of  these  miracles  are  filled 
the  chronicles,  of  the  church  in  general,  as  also  of  our 
church  in  particular.  Several  images  of  Christ  the  Saviour, 
of  his  immaculate  Mother,  of  St.  Nicholas,  and  of  other 
saints  have,  on  account  of  the  abundance  of  miracles 
wrought  by  them,  since  antiquity  been  known  under  the 
name  of  miracle-working  images,  and,  being  ftiund  in  vari- 
ous places  of  the  Orthodox  Church,  by  the  will  of  God 
our  benefactor,  have  not  yet  ceased  to  be  as  it  were  chan- 
nels or  guides  of  his  miraculous  power,  which  gives  us 
salvation."     (p.  580.) 

It  is  for  these  channels  of  his  miraculous  power  that 
controversies  have  existed  and  differences  of  opinions  still 
exist:  the  question  is  whether  they  are  channels  or  not. 
If  the  Lord  has  deigned  to  work  miracles  through  those 
images,  then  not  only  a  rude  peasant,  but  even  the  great- 
est philosopher  cannot  help  but  pray  to  the  image.  If  a 
case  is  decided  through  a  secretary,  the  secretary  has  to 
be  invoked,  and  there  is  no  way  out  of  it.  We  have  long 
ago  descended  upon  earth  from  the  sphere  of  questions 
about  religion.  The  discussion  was  about  sacraments 
which  mechanically  impart  grace,  independently  of  the 
spiritual  condition  of  the  pastor  and  believer,  ouly  when 
there  are  no  causes  for  cassation ;  and  now  the  subject 
under  discussion  is  the  images,  which  are  channels  of 
miraculous  power,  which  therefore  have  to  be  prayed  to, 
though  they  are  not  gods. 

About  the  history  of  these  channels  we  learn  from  the 
Theology,  that  during  the  first  three  centuries  "  the  pa- 


416       Oritique  of  dogmatic  theology 

gans  at  times  rebukingly  asked  the  Christians  why  they 
had  no  certain  representations,"  because  "  one  of  the 
councils  in  Spain,  the  one  at  Elvira,  which  took  place  in 
the  year  305,  in  its  36th  rule  directly  forbade  the  use  of 
images  in  temples.  But :  (a)  first  of  all  this  rule  iucon- 
testably  proves  that  images  were  then  in  use  in  the 
churches ;  (5)  this  rule  forbade  men  to  represent  upon  the 
walls  of  the  temples  that  which  the  Christians  worshipped 
{quod  colitur  et  adoratur),  that  is,  as  is  assumed,  to  repre- 
sent God  in  his  substance,  which  is  invisible  and  unrep- 
resentable ;  (c)  not  improbable  is  another  guess,  which  is, 
that  the  rule  was  enunciated  in  conformity  wdth  the  con- 
ditions of  place  and  time:  in  Spain  just  then  raged  the 
Diocletian  persecution,  and  the  Pagans,  who  frequently 
broke  into  the  temples,  desecrated  the  holy  representa- 
tions of  the  Lord  and  his  saints,  and  so,  in  order  to  avoid 
that,  this  rule  was  adopted  for  a  certain  time."    (p.  584.) 

257.  Retribution  to  sinners:  (a)  their  punishment  in 
hell.  "  The  sinners,  suddenly  after  death  and  the  private 
judgment,  depart  with  their  souls  to  a  place  of  sorrow  and 
grief."     (p.  584.) 

Proofs  from  Holy  Scripture.  The  place  to  which  they 
depart  is  called  the  extreme  darkness,  a  fiery  furnace. 
Not  all  agree  where  that  Gehenna  is,  but  there  are  several 
subdivisions  in  hell :  "  It  may  be  assumed  that  hell  has 
its  separate  abodes,  lockups,  and  dungeons  of  the  souls,  its 
separate  divisions,  of  which  one  is  properly  called  Hell, 
another  Gehenna,  a  third  Tartarus,  a  fourtli  a  Fiery  Lake, 
and  so  forth.  At  least  there  is  in  Revelation  a  passage 
where  hell  and  the  lake  of  fire  are  distinguished  (Rev. 
XX.  13,  14).  These  unequal  torments  of  the  sinners  in 
hell  after  the  private  judgment  are  not  full  and  com- 
plete, but  only  anticipatory." 

Proofs  from  Holy  Scripture. 

258.  (&)  The  possibility  which  some  sinners  have  of 
receiving  alleviation,  and  even  immunity  from  the  pun- 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  417 

ishments  of  hell,  because  of  the  prayers  of  the  church. 
"  However,  while  the  Orthodox  Church  teaches  that  all 
sinners,  after  their  death  and  the  private  judgment  over 
them,  all  alike  depart  to  hell,  a  place  of  sorrow  and  of 
grief,  it  at  the  same  time  confesses  that  for  those  who 
have  repented  before  their  departure  from  the  present 
life,  but  have  not  had  time  to  bring  the  fruits  which  are 
worthy  of  repentance  (such  as  prayer,  contrition,  the 
consolation  of  the  poor,  and  the  expression  in  acts  of 
love  for  God  and  for  their  neighbours),  there  is  still  left 
a  chance  of  getting  alleviation  in  sufferings  and  even  of 
being  completely  freed  from  the  bonds  of  hell.  Such  an 
alleviation  and  immunity  the  sinners  may  obtain,  not 
through  any  of  their  own  deserts  or  through  repentance 
(for  after  death  and  the  private  judgment  there  is  no  place 
either  for  repentance  or  for  deserts),  but  only  through  the 
infinite  grace  of  God,  through  the  prayers  of  the  church, 
and  through  the  benefactions  done  by  the  living  for  the 
dead,  and  especially  through  the  power  of  the  bloodless 
sacrifice,  which  in  particular  the  servants  of  the  church 
bring  for  every  Christian  and  for  the  deceased,  and  which 
the  Catholic  and  Apostolic  Church  in  general  brings  every 
day  for  all."     (p.  589.) 

That  is  proved.  That  natural  consideration  how,  if  God 
is  just  (as  a  man  is  just),  as  the  hierarchy  understands  it, 
he  can  forgive  a  sinner  for  somebody  else's  prayers  is 
decided  in  the  following  way : 

"  St.  Augustine :  '  There  is  no  cause  for  the  slightest 
doubt  that  they  (prayers  of  the  holy  church,  saving  sacri- 
fices, and  alms)  are  beneficial  to  the  dead,  but  only  to 
those  who  before  their  death  have  lived  in  such  a  way 
that  they  can  be  beneficial  to  them.  For  in  behalf  of 
those  who  have  departed  without  faith,  which  is  accom- 
panied by  charity,  and  without  the  communion  in  the 
sacraments,  their  friends  will  in  vain  perform  the  works 
of  that  godliness,  an  earnest  of  which  they  did  not  have 


418  CRITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

in  themselves,  when  they  were  here,  and  when  they  did 
not  receive  or  vainly  received  divine  grace,  and  treasured 
up  for  themselves  not  mercy,  but  wrath.  Thus,  no  new 
deserts  are  obtained  for  the  dead,  when  their  friends  do 
something  good  in  their  behalf,  but  the  consequences  are 
extracted  from  the  foundations  which  they  have  laid 
before.' "     (p.  599.) 

What  good  is  there,  then,  in  prayers  ?  Is  it  possible 
God  will  not  make  out  the  foundations  which  they  have 
laid  before,  without  the  mediation  of  advocates  ?  What 
use  is  there,  then,  in  the  prayers  and  sacrifices  of  the 
church  ?  However  disagreeable  it  is  to  say  so,  there  is 
no  other  cause  for  them  except  that  of  collecting  pennies. 
Indeed,  this  natural  heartfelt  sentiment  of  every  praying 
person,  in  addressing  God,  to  remember  the  souls  of 
friends,  —  this  holy,  this  good  sentiment,  the  hierarchy, 
by  its  touch,  has  managed  to  change  into  something 
stupid,  base,  and  degrading. 

Then  follow  reflections  about  the  prayers  of  the  church  : 
(1)  the  deceased  are  divided  into  those  for  whom  it 
is  necessary  to  pray,  and  into  those  for  whom  it  is  not 
necessary  to  pray  (the  unrepenting  and  the  stubborn) ;  (2) 
there  is  a  refutal  of  the  opinions  of  those  who  assert  that 
there  is  no  need  of  praying  for  those  who  have  passed 
away  having  received  the  last  sacrament,  on  the  ground 
that  they  are  holy  as  it  is ;  (3)  it  is  proved  that  it  is 
necessary  to  pray  for  them ;  (4)  prayers  have  an  effect 
only  on  the  private  judgment ;  the  same  reflection  by  St. 
Augustine  as  quoted  above,  that  prayer  is  a  kind  of  re- 
membrance ;  (6)  that  there  are  some  who  can  no  longer 
be  saved  by  prayers,  while  others  may  be  saved ;  (7)  the 
church  prays  "  on  the  third  day  for  the  sake  of  him  who 
on  the  third  day  rose  from  the  dead ;  on  the  ninth  day  in 
commemoration  of  the  living  and  of  the  dead  ;  on  the 
fortieth,  because  for  that  length  of  time  the  people 
lamented  Moses ; "  (8)  in  case  we  pray  for  those  who  are 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  419 

already  "  in  heaven  or  among  the  number  of  the  rejected," 
the  prayers,  "  though  no  longer  useful  to  them,  can  do 
them  no  harm ; "  (9)  "  if  the  church  prays  for  all  who 
have  died  in  repentance,  and  its  prayers  are  very  strong 
before  God  and  beneficial  to  them,  then  all  will  be  saved, 
and  no  one  shall  be  deprived  of  bhss  ?  To  that 
we  shall  say,  '  Let  it  be  so,  and  oh,  if  it  were  so ! ' " 
(p.  606.) 

259.  (c)  Eemarks  about  purgatory.  Controversy  with 
the  Catholics  about  purgatory,  and  proofs  that  they  are 
in  the  wrong. 

260.  The  moral  application  of  the  dogma  about  the 
private  judgment  and  retribution  naturally  is  :  to  be  afraid 
of  the  judgment  and  have  recourse  to  the  rehcs  and  images 
and  pay  money  to  the  hierarchy  that  it  may  pray  for  the 
departed. 

Section  11.  On  the  general  judgment.  261.  Connection 
with  what  precedes  ;  the  day  of  the  general  judgment ;  the 
uncertainty  of  that  day,  and  signs  of  its  approach,  especially 
the  appearance  of  the  antichrist. 

"  The  private  judgment,  to  which  every  man  is  subjected 
after  his  death,  is  not  the  complete  and  final  judgment,  and 
so  naturally  makes  us  wait  for  another,  the  full  and  decisive 
judgment.  At  the  private  judgment  the  soul  receives  its 
award  without  any  participation  of  the  body,  although  the 
body  has  shared  with  it  its  good  and  bad  works.  After 
the  private  judgment,  the  righteous  in  heaven  and  the 
sinners  in  hell  have  opened  unto  them  only  an  anticipa- 
tion of  that  happiness  or  torment,  which  they  have  de- 
served. Finally,  after  the  private  judgment  a  few  sinners 
still  have  a  chance  to  alleviate  their  fate  and  even  to  free 
themselves  from  the  bonds  of  hell,  if  not  through  their 
own  deserts,  at  least  through  the  prayers  of  the  church. 
But  the  day,  the  last  day,  will  certainly  come  for  the 
whole  human  race  (John  vi.  39-40)."     (p.  613.) 

The  day  will  come  when  the  body  will  receive  accord- 


420  CKITIQUE   OF   DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY 

ing  to  its  deserts.  Then  are  defined  the  symptoms  of  the 
coming  of  that  day  : 

"  (1)  On  the  one  hand  extraordinary  successes  of  good 
upon  earth,  —  the  dissemination  of  Christ's  Gospel  in  the 
whole  world :  (2)  on  the  other  hand,  extraordinary  suc- 
cesses of  evil  and  the  appearance  of  the  antichrist  upon 
earth." 

This  is  who  the  antichrist  is  going  to  be : 
"  (a)  It  will  be  a  definite  person,  by  all  means  a  man, 
but  only  a  lawless  man  under  the  special  operation  of 
Satan ;  (h)  he  will  in  his  character  be  distinguished  by 
extraordinary  pride  and  will  give  himself  out  as  a  God ; 
(c)  for  the  purpose  of  attaining  his  end  he  will  preach  a 
false  doctrine,  which  is  contrary  to  the  saving  faith  of 
Christ,  an  enticing  teaching,  with  which  he  will  draw  after 
him  many  weak  and  unworthy  people ;  (d)  in  confirmation 
of  his  teaching  and  for  the  greater  seduction  of  men,  he 
will  perform  false  signs  and  miracles;  (e)  finally  he  will 
perish  from  the  actions  of  Jesus  Christ  the  Saviour,  when 
he  comes  to  judge  the  living  and  the  dead.  We  shall 
further  remark :  (a)  he  will  come  from  the  tribe  of  Dan  ; 

(b)  he  will  be  a  powerful  lord,  who  will  usurp  the  power 
by  force,  and  will  extend  his  dominion  over  all  the  nations  ; 

(c)  he  wiU  cause  a  terrible  persecution  of  the  Christians, 
will  demand  divine  worship  of  himself,  will  draw  many 
after  him,  and  those  who  will  not  follow  him  he  will  put 
to  death ;  (d)  for  the  counteraction  to  the  antichrist,  God 
will  send  from  heaven  two  witnesses,  who,  as  is  said  in 
Revelation,  shall  prophesy  the  truth  and  work  miracles, 
and  when  they  shall  have  finished  their  testimony,  they 
shall  be  killed  by  a  dragon,  and  after  three  days  and  a 
half  they  shall  rise  from  the  dead  and  ascend  to  heaven  ; 
(e)  the  dominion  of  the  antichrist  will  last  only  three 
years  and  a  half."     (pp.  616-618.) 

All  that  is  proved  by  Holy  Scripture. 

"  It  will  not  be  superfluous  to  remark  that  the  predic- 


CRITIQUE   OF   DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY  421 

tions  about  the  antichrist  have  more  than  once  been 
applied  to  various  persons.  Some,  according  to  the  tes- 
timony of  St.  Augustine,  saw  the  antichrist  in  Nero ; 
others  saw  hJm  in  the  Gnostics ;  others  again  in  the 
pontiff  at  Eome  and  in  general  in  popery  :  an  idea  which 
arose  and  was  quite  common  in  the  Middle  Ages  in  the 
West  among  many  sectarians,  but  which  became  espe- 
cially strengthened  with  the  appearance  of  Protestant  com- 
munities, and  which  has  penetrated  into  their  theological 
systems  and  has  many  times  been  discussed  in  special 
works,  and  so  forth."     (p.  619.) 

The  author  does  not  mention  that  the  greater  part  of 
the  Paissian  people  regards  our  hierarchy  as  the  hierarchy 
of  the  antichrist. 

262.  Events  which  are  to  take  place  on  the  day  of  the 
general  judgment,  and  their  order.  "  The  actions  of  the 
antichrist  on  earth  will  last  to  the  very  judgment  day." 
(p.  619.) 

263.  The  premonitory  circumstances  of  the  general 
judgment:  (a)  the  arrival  of  the  Lord  Judge  over  the 
living  and  the  dead.  On  that  day  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
will  come  down  upon  earth.  Everything  is  proved  by 
Holy  Scripture. 

26-4.  (h)  The  resurrection  of  the  dead,  and  the  trans- 
formation of  the  living.  "  On  that  last  day  (John  vi. 
40-44)  and  just  at  the  time  that  the  glorious  descent  of 
the  Lord  upon  earth,  surrounded  by  those  who  live  in 
heaven,  will  take  place,  he  shall  send  before  him  with  a 
great  sound  of  a  trumpet  (Matt.  xxiv.  31),  and  the  dead 
shall  hear  the  voice  of  the  Son  of  God  (John  v.  25)  ;  for 
the  Lord  himself  shall  descend  from  heaven  with  a  shout, 
with  the  voice  of  the  archangel,  and  with  the  trump  of 
God  :  and  the  dead  in  Christ  shall  rise  first :  then  we  which 
are  alive  shall  be  changed  (1  Thes.  iv.  16,  17;  1  Cor. 
XV.  52)."     (pp.  622  and  623.) 

That  is,  in  Russian  :  first  all  the  dead  shall  arise,  and 


422  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

then  the  living  shall  be  changed.  It  is  proved  by  Holy 
Scripture  that  there  shall  certainly  be  a  resurrection  of 
the  dead,  and  that  the  possibility  of  the  resurrection  of  the 
dead  cannot  be  subject  to  doubt.  This  is  the  way  it  is 
proved : 

"  Li  the  world  nothing  is  destroyed  or  annihilated,  but 
everything  remains  whole  in  the  power  and  in  the  right 
hand  of  the  Almighty ;  our  bodies  lose  their  existence 
through  death  only  for  us,  but  not  for  God,  who  knows 
full  well  all  the  smallest  particles  of  each  dead  body, 
though  they  may  be  scattered  everywhere  and  may  be 
united  with  other  bodies,  and  is  always  able  to  reunite 
these  particles  into  the  former  organism."     (p.  625.) 

When  it  comes  to  talking  about  particles,  the  question 
is  not  about  replacing  the  particles,  but  about  the  fact 
that  there  will  not  be  enough  particles  to  go  around.  The 
body  of  my  great-grandfather  is  rotten  :  parts  of  his  body 
have  gone  into  the  grass  ;  a  cow  has  eaten  the  gi-ass ;  a 
peasant  boy  has  drunk  those  parts  in  his  milk,  and  these 
particles  have  become  his  body,  and  his  body  has  rotted. 
There  will  not  be  enough  particles  to  go  around,  so  that  it 
is  absolutely  impossible  for  God  to  do  that  by  means  of 
the  particles.  It  would  be  better  to  prove  that  in  the  old 
way  like  tliis : 

"  (a)  In  reply  to  the  objection  that  the  resurrection  of 
the  dead  is  incomprehensible  to  us,  men  have  pointed  to 
other,  not  less  incomprehensible  things,  such  as  :  the  birth 
of  each  man,  the  original  formation  of  the  human  body 
out  of  the  dust,  the  creation  of  the  world  out  of  nothing, 
and  so  forth." 

That  proves  the  possibility  of  the  resuiTection  in  the 
body,  and  the  necessity  of  it  is  proved  like  this : 

"  By  the  very  nature  of  Christianity  it  is  necessary  that, 
as  in  Adam  all  die,  even  so  in  Christ  shall  all  be  made 
alive  (1  Cor.  xv.  22),  and  that  not  only  our  first  enemy, 
the  devil,  but  also  our  last  enemy,  death,  shall  be  des- 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  423 

troyed  (1  Cor.  xv.  26).  Otherwise  the  purpose  of  Christ's 
descent  upon  earth,  the  purpose  of  the  whole  Christianity, 
will  not  he  fully  realized :  man  will  not  be  all  saved,  his 
enemies  will  not  be  all  vanquished,  and  in  Christ  we  shall 
receive  less  than  we  have  lost  in  Adam.  (p.  628.)  Ac- 
cording to  their  qualities,  the  resurrected  bodies :  (1) 
will  be  essentially  the  same  that  they  have  been  in  con- 
nection with  certain  souls  during  their  life  upon  earth ; 
(2)  but,  on  the  other  hand,  they  will  also  be  distinct  from 
the  present  bodies :  because  they  will  arise  in  a  trans- 
formed state  in  resemblance  to  the  resurrected  body  of 
Chi'ist  the  Saviour.  They  will  be  :  (a)  incorruptible  and  im- 
mortal ;  (h)  glorious  or  light-bearing ;  (c)  strong  and  sound  ; 
(d)  spiritual,  (p.  629.)  We  shall  all  of  us  have  eternal 
bodies,  but  not  all  alike.  If  one  is  righteous  he  will 
receive  a  heavenly  body  in  which  he  will  be  able  properly 
to  have  relations  with  the  angels ;  but  if  one  is  sinful,  he 
will  receive  an  eternal  body,  which  is  to  suffer  torments 
for  sins,  in  order  to  burn  for  ever  in  fire  and  not  to  be 
destroyed,  (pp.  631  and  632.)  Some  have  thought  that 
after  the  resurrection  of  the  bodies  the  distinction  of  sexes 
will  be  abolished ;  others,  on  the  contrary,  have  assumed 
that  the  distinction  will  remain  ;  others  again,  that  all  the 
dead  will  rise  as  males,  an  opinion  against  which  St. 
Augustine  had  armed  himself.  Some  have  divined  that 
all  the  dead,  old  men,  middle-aged  men,  youths,  and 
children  will  rise  as  being  of  one  age,  unto  the  measure 
of  the  stature  of  the  fulness  of  Christ  (Eph.  iv.  13) ; 
others  have  said  that  they  will  not  be  of  the  same  age, 
though  they  have  not  admitted  that  babes  and  youths 
would  rise  in  their  respective  ages,  but  have  thought  that 
they  would  rise  at  a  maturer  age."     (p.  632.) 

Besides  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  there  is  disclosed 
also  the  mystery  in  regard  to  those  whom  the  judgment 
will  find  still  living,  and  who  will  be  transformed  in  a 
very  short  time. 


424  CKITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

265.  The  general  judgment  itself :  its  actuality,  manner, 
and  properties.  "  Soon  after  the  appearance  upon  earth 
of  the  Judge  of  the  living  and  the  dead  in  all  his  glory, 
when  with  his  voice  there  shall  arise  the  dead  and  the 
living  shall  be  changed,  the  judgment  over  them,  the  gen- 
eral judgment,  will  begin."  (p.  633.)  The  representation 
of  the  general  judgment,  as  sketched  to  us  in  the  Word  of 
God,  shows  to  us:  (1)  the  Judge  sitting  on  the  throne 
of  glory;  (2)  the  executors  of  his  will,  the  angels;  (3) 
the  defendants:  (a)  all  the  living  and  the  dead  people; 
(b)  the  righteous  and  the  bad;  (c)  the  devils.  (4)  As 
subjects  for  the  judgment  will  serve:  (a)  not  only  the 
works  of  men,  (b)  but  also  their  words. 

Nothing  is  said  about  the  devils. 

When  the  judgment  is  over,  the  righteous  will  be  sep- 
arated from  the  bad.  Some  will  be  placed  on  the  right, 
the  others  on  the  left.  Then  will  take  place  the  procla- 
mation of  the  sentence  by  the  Judge  to  either  division : 

"  Then  shall  the  King  say  unto  them  on  the  right  hand, 
Come,  ye  blessed  of  my  Father,  inherit  the  kingdom  pre- 
pared for  you  from  the  foundation  of  the  world  (Matt. 
XXV.  34).  Then  shall  he  say  also  unto  them  on  the  left 
hand.  Depart  from  me,  ye  cursed,  into  everlasting  fire, 
prepared  for  the  devil  and  his  angels  (ib.  41).  The  holy 
fathers  and  the  teachers  of  the  church  have  recognized 
this  representation  of  the  general  judgment  as  unquestion- 
ably correct,  and  have  written  their  interpretations  of  it." 

Here  are  the  interpretations  : 

"  We  must  not  think  that  the  coming  of  the  Lord  will 
be  local  and  carnal,  but  we  must  expect  him  in  the  glory 
of  the  Father  suddenly  throughout  the  whole  world.  .  .  . 
But  we  must  assume  that  much  time  will  be  lost  before 
each  will  see  himself  and  his  works ;  and  the  mind  will 
in  a  twinkling  of  time  represent  to  itself  the  Judge  and 
the  consequences  of  the  divine  judgment  with  unspeak- 
able power ,  all  that  the  mind  will  vividly  sketch  before 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  425 

itself,  and  iu  the  mightiness  of  his  soul,  as  in  a  mirror, 
will  see  the  pictures  of  what  he  has  done."     (p.  637.) 

The  Theology  says  that  the  judgment  is  not  to  be 
understood  as  local  and  carnal,  but  how  is  it  to  be  under- 
stood ?  for  it  says  that  the  judgment  will  be : 

"(1)  General.  .  ,  .  The  King  comes  down  from  his 
place  in  order  to  judge  over  the  earth ;  his  hosts  accom- 
pany him  in  great  terror  and  trepidation.  These  mortal 
members  come  to  be  witnesses  of  the  terrible  judgment ; 
and  all  men,  no  matter  how  many  there  have  been  and 
are  upon  earth,  come  into  the  presence  of  the  King.  No 
matter  how  many  have  been  born  or  will  be  born  will  all 
come  to  this  spectacle,  to  see  the  judgment."     (p.  637.) 

"  (2)  Solemn  and  open.  .  .  .  And  he  will  call  heaven 
and  earth  to  be  with  him  at  the  judgment ;  and  those 
who  are  above  and  far  away  will  appear  with  terror  and 
trepidation.  And  the  celestial  hosts  and  the  legions  of 
hell  will  tremble  before  the  Judge  who  knows  no  favours, 
and  who  will  come  accompanied  by  terror  and  by  death." 

That  is  the  way  Christ  will  come  ! 

"  (3)  Stern  and  terrible  :  because  it  will  be  done  accord- 
ing to  the  whole  divine  righteousness,  and  according  to 
nothing  but  righteousness ;  it  will  be  a  day  of  wrath  and 
revelation  of  the  righteous  judgment  of  God  (Eom.  ii.   5.) 

"  (4)  Decisive  and  the  last :  because  it  will  unchange- 
ably determine  for  eternity  the  fate  of  each  of  the  de- 
fendants." 

That  is,  it  will  condemn  the  sinners  to  torments. 
Nothing  can  be  added  to  that.  The  only  feeling  which  I 
experienced  in  quoting  these  passages  was  that  of  terror 
and  horror  before  that  blasphemy  which  I  was  committing 
in  copying  and  repeating  them. 

266.  Concomitant  circumstances  of  the  general  judg- 
ment :  (a)  the  end  of  the  world.  "  During  that  last  day, 
in  which  the  last  judgment  of  God  will  take  place  over 
the  whole  world,  there  will  also   ensue  the  end  of  the 


426  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

world."  (p.  638.)  "  The  end  of  the  world  will  not  consist 
in  its  being  completely  destroyed  and  annihilated,  but  in 
its  being  changed  and  renovated  by  fire. — The  matter  of 
the  reestablishment  of  men  will  come  to  an  end  with  the 
general  judgment,  where  will  take  place  the  revelation  of 
the  sons  of  God.  Consequently,  the  creatures  themselves 
must  be  freed  from  labour  and  corruption,  into  the  free- 
dom of  the  glory  of  the  children  of  God ;  the  whole 
material  world  must  be  purified  from  the  deleterious  con- 
sequences of  human  sin  and  be  renovated.  This  renova- 
tion of  the  world  will  take  place  on  the  last  day  by  means 
of  fire,  so  that  in  the  new  heaven  and  the  new  earth  noth- 
ing sinful  will  be  left,  but  righteousness  alone  will  abide 
(2  Peter  iii.  13)."     (p.  639.) 

So  here  is  clearly  expressed  the  idea  that  the  renova- 
tion of  the  world  was  not  achieved  by  the  redemption, 
that  that  was  spoken  of  only  as  an  adornment  of  speech, 
and  that  the  present  renovation  will  be  produced  by 
Christ,  not  at  liis  first,  but  at  his  second  coming. 

Proofs  from  Holy  Scripture  of  the  correctness  of  this 
end  and  the  renovation  of  the  world  by  fire. 

267.  (h)  The  end  of  Christ's  kingdom  of  grace  and 
the  beginning  of  the  kingdom  of  glory  ;  remarks  about  the 
chiliasm,  or  millennium,  of  Christ.  That  is  confirmed. 
The  kingdom  of  grace  will  come  to  an  end  and  the  king- 
dom of  glory  will  begin,  that  is,  the  real  liberation  from 
sin  and  death,  that  is,  what  heretofore  has  been  asserted 
of  the  kingdom  of  grace.  Proofs  of  that  from  Holy  Scrip- 
ture, and  a  controversy  with  those  who  said  that  one 
thousand  years  before  the  end  Christ  would  come  upon 
earth,  would  raise  the  righteous  from  the  dead  and  would 
reign  with  them  for  a  thousand  years.     That  is  not  true, 

268.  Connection  with  the  preceding,  and  nature  of  this 
retribution.  After  the  judgment,  Christ  will  pronounce 
the  sentence.  "  This  retribution  after  the  general  judg- 
ment will  be  full,  complete,  decisive.     Full,  that  is,  not 


CRITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY  427 

only  for  the  soul  of  man,  as  after  the  private  judgment, 
but  both  for  the  soul  and  the  body,  —  for  the  full  man. 
Complete  :  for  it  will  not  consist  merely  in  an  anticipation 
of  happiness  for  the  righteous  and  of  torment  for  the  sin- 
ners, as  after  the  private  judgment,  but  in  complete  happi- 
ness and  torment,  in  accordance  with  the  deserts  of  each. 
Decisive :  for  it  will  persist  unchangeable  for  ever,  and 
not  for  one  of  the  sinners  will  it  be  possible  ever  to  free 
himself  from  heU,  though  such  a  chance  is  open  to  some 
of  the  sinners  after  the  private  judgment."     (p.  649.) 

269.  Eetribution  for  the  sinners,  (a)  In  what  wiU 
the  everlasting  torments  consist  ?  The  eternal  torments 
of  the  sinners  will  consist :  (1)  in  the  separation  from  God 
and  in  the  curse ;  (2)  in  the  deprivation  of  the  benefits  of 
the  kingdom  of  God ;  (3)  they  will  be  in  hell  with  the 
devils,  who  will  torture  them ;  (4)  they  will  experience 
internal  torments;  (5)  they  will  experience  external 
torments,  of  the  undying  worm  and  the  unextinguished 
fire. 

"  When  you  hear  of  the  fire,  do  not  imagine  that  the  fire 
of  that  place  is  like  what  it  is  upon  earth :  our  fire  will 
burn  whatever  it  gets  hold  of,  and  changes  it  into  some- 
tliing  else ;  but  that  other  fire  will  eternally  burn  the  one 
it  gets  hold  of,  and  will  never  stop,  —  and  so  it  is  called 
inextinguisliable.  For  the  sinners,  too,  have  to  be  vested 
in  immortality,  not  for  their  honour,  but  as  an  eternal 
requisite  for  the  torment  in  hell.  No  mind  is  able  to 
imagine  how  terrible  it  is,  unless  from  the  experience 
of  small  calamities  one  may  get  a  small  conception  of 
those  great,  great  torments :  if  you  are  ever  in  a  bath- 
house which  is  heated  more  than  is  proper,  you  may 
imagine  the  fire  of  Gehenna ;  and  if  you  ever  burn  in  a 
high  fever,  you  may  mentally  transfer  yourself  to  that 
flame,  and  then  you  wiU  be  able  properly  to  understand 
that  distinction.  For,  if  the  bath-house  and  the  fever 
torment  and  worry  you  so,  what  are  you  going  to  feel 


428  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

when  you  fall  into  that  river  of  fire  which  will  be  flowing 
before  the  terrible  judgment  ? " 

(a)  They  will  eternally  weep  and  gnash  their  teeth. 

"  What  will  be,"  says  another  holy  father,  "  the  con- 
dition of  the  body  which  is  subjected  t(j  these  unending 
and  unbearable  torments  where  there  is  the  inextinguish- 
able fire,  the  immortally  tormenting  worm,  the  dark  and 
terrible  pit  of  hell,  bitter  sobbing,  unusual  groans,  weep- 
ing and  gnashing  of  teeth,  and  where  there  is  no  end  to 
sufferings?  From  all  that  there  is  no  hberation  after 
death,  and  there  are  no  means  and  no  chance  to  be  freed 
from  those  terrible  torments."     (p.  654.) 

Such  is  the  condition  of  the  sinner ;  but  what  will  be 
the  condition  of  the  good  God  who  will  eternally  look 
upon  it  ? 

270.  (h)  Degrees  of  the  torments  of  hell.  "However, 
although  all  sinners  will  be  subjected  to  torments  in  hell, 
they  will  not  be  in  the  same  degree,  but  each  in  conform- 
ity with  his  sins."     (p.  654.) 

All  that  is  proved  by  Holy  Scripture. 

271.  The  eternity  of  the  torments  of  hell.  "  But  differ- 
ing from  each  other  in  degree,  the  torments  of  the  sinners 
in  hell  will  by  no  means  differ  in  respect  to  duration,  for 
they  will  be  equally  eternal  and  unendiug  for  all."  (v 
656.)  ^ 

All  that  is  confirmed  by  Holy  Scripture,  and  there  is  a 
refutal  of  the  opinion  that  the  teaching  about  the  eternity 
of  torments  is  contrary  to  common  sense  (not  to  common 
sense,  but  to  some  low  conception  of  God). 

According  to  the  teaching  of  the  Theology  torments 
that  are  not  eternal  are  contrary  to  sound  reason. 

272.  Eetribution  for  the  righteous :  (a)  wherein  will 
their  happiness  consist  ?  "  As  mucli  as,  on  the  one  hand, 
the  Word  of  God  depicts  in  gloomy  colours  the  fate  of  the 
sinners  after  the  general  judgment,  so,  on  the  other,  it 
depicts   in   bright   and   joyous  colours   the    fate  of   the 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  429 

righteous.  (1)  They  inherit  the  kingdom  which  is  pre- 
pared for  them  from  the  foundation  of  the  world ;  (2)  in 
this  kingdom,  city,  house  of  God,  the  first  source  of  the 
happiness  of  these  righteous  people  will  be  their  constant 
coexistence  and  cohabitation  with  God  himself  and  with 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  constant  participation  in 
the  divine  glory,  as  much  as  ^that  is  possible  for  a  crea- 
ture ;  (3)  living  all  the  time  with  the  Lord  in  the  kingdom 
of  heaven,  the  righteous  will  be  permitted  to  behold  the 
Tri-hypostatic  One  face  to  face." 

That  is,  that  terrible  God  who,  having  created  men  out 
of  love,  torments  them  for  ever. 

273.  (h)  Degrees  of  the  happiness  of  the  righteous  : 

"  The  happiness  of  the  righteous  in  heaven,  which  is 
common  for  all  of  them,  has  its  degrees,  in  accordance 
wdth  the  moral  dignity  of  each."  That  is  proved  by  Holy 
Scripture. 

274.  (c)  The  eternity  of  the  happiness  of  the  righteous. 
The  happiness  of  the  righteous  is  eternal. 

275.  The  moral  application  of  the  dogma  about  the 
general  judgment  and  retribution.  "  Oh,  if  we  only 
thought  often  and  attentively  of  that  great  day  (Acts  ii. 
20),  the  day  of  wrath  and  revelation  of  the  righteous 
judgment  of  God  (Eom.  ii.  5),  with  which  some  day  the 
whole  house-management  of  our  salvation  will  end  !  If 
we  only  presented  to  ourselves  vividly  and  in  detail  those 
endless  benefits  which  are  prepared  for  the  righteous  in 
heaven,  and  those  eternal  torments  which  await  the  sin- 
ners in  hell !  How  many  incitements  we  should  find  for 
ourselves  to  abstain  from  sins  and  to  abide  in  godliness ! 
So  give  us  all,  O  Lord,  and  for  ever,  the  living  and  undy- 
ing remembrance  of  thy  future  glorious  coming,  of  thy  last 
terrible  judgment  over  us,  of  thy  most  just  and  everlast- 
ing retribution  for  the  righteous  and  for  the  sinners,  — 
that  in  its  light  and  in  the  light  of  thy  grace  and  aid  we 
may  live  soberly,  righteously,  and  godly,  in  this  present 


430  CEITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

world  (Tit.  ii.  12),  and  in  that  manner  finally  attain  the 
eternal,  blissful  hfe  in  heaven,  so  as  to  glorify  thee  with 
all  our  being,  thee,  with  thy  beginuiugless  Father  and 
most  holy  and  good  and  life-giving  Spirit,  for  ever  and 
ever." 


CONCLUSION 

So  there  it  is,  the  whole  disclosure  of  the  divinely 
revealed  truths.  They  have  all  been  disclosed.  There  is 
nothiug  else  left.  And  it  is  not  permitted  to  understand 
them  in  any  other  way.  He  who  understands  them 
differently :  anathema, 

A  man  asks  what  this  world  is  in  which  he  finds  him- 
self. He  asks  what  the  meaning  of  his  existence  is  and 
what  he  is  to  be  guided  by  in  that  freedom  which  he  feels 
within  himself.  He  asks  all  that,  and  God  through  the 
lips  of  the  church  estabhshed  by  him  replies  to  him : 

Do  you  want  to  know  what  this  world  is  ?     Here  it  is : 

There  is  a  God,  one,  omniscient,  all-good,  almighty. 
This  God  is  a  simple  spirit,  but  he  has  will  and  rea- 
son. This  God  is  one  and  yet  three.  The  Father  begot 
the  Son,  and  the  Son  sits  in  the  flesh  at  the  right  of  his 
Father. 

The  Spirit  emanates  from  the  Father.  All  three  of 
them  are  Gods,  and  they  are  all  different  and  all  one. 
This  trine  God  has  existed  eternally  one  in  three,  and 
suddenly  it  occurred  to  him  to  create  the  world  and  to 
create  it  from  nothing  with  his  thought,  will,  and  word. 
At  first  he  created  the  spiritual  w^orld,  the  angels.  The 
angels  were  created  good,  and  God  created  them  solely  for 
their  own  good,  but,  being  created  good,  these  beings  sud- 
denly of  their  own  wdll  became  bad.  Some  angels  re- 
mained sood,  while  others  became  bad  and  were  turned 
into  devils.  God  created  a  very  large  number  of  angels 
and  divided  them  into  nine  orders  and  three  classes: 
angels,  archangels,  cherubim,  seraphim,  powers,  dominions. 

131 


432  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

beginnings,  principalities,  and  thrones.  Devils  are  also 
divided  into  categories,  but  the  names  of  these  categories 
are  not  precisely  known. 

Then  much  time  passed  and  God  began  to  create  anew 
and  made  the  material  world.  He  made  it  in  six  days. 
By  day  is  to  be  understood  the  turning  of  the  earth  about 
its  axis.  And  there  was  morning  and  evening  the  very 
first  day.  If  during  those  first  days  there  was  no  sun, 
God  himself  shook  the  illuminating  matter,  so  that  there 
might  be  morning  and  evening.  God  made  six  days ;  on 
the  sixth  day  he  made  Adam,  the  first  man,  out  of  earth, 
and  blew  the  soul  into  him ;  then  he  made  woman,  Man 
is  made  out  of  soul  and  body.  The  destination  of  man  is 
to  remain  true  to  the  power  of  God.  Man  was  created 
good  and  absolutely  perfect.  His  whole  duty  lay  in  this, 
that  he  should  not  eat  the  forbidden  apple,  and  God  not 
only  had  created  him  perfect,  but  also  aided  him  in  every 
way  possible,  teaching,  amusing,  and  visiting  him  in  the 
garden. 

But  Adam  none  the  less  ate  the  forbidden  apple,  and 
for  that  the  good  God  wreaked  revenge  on  Adam  and 
drove  him  out  of  the  garden,  cursing  him,  the  whole  earth, 
and  all  the  descendants  of  Adam. 

All  that  is  not  to  be  understood  in  any  transferred,  but 
in  a  direct  sense,  as  having  actually  occurred.  After  that, 
God,  that  same  God  in  three  persons,  the  omniscient,  all- 
good,  almighty  God,  who  had  created  Adam  and  cursed 
him  and  all  his  posterity,  still  continued  to  provide,  that 
is,  to  care  for  their  good,  for  Adam,  for  his  descendants, 
and  for  all  the  creatures  which  he  had  made.  He  pre- 
serves the  creatures,  cooperates  with  them,  and  rules  over 
them  all  and  over  each  in  particular. 

God  rules  over  the  bad  and  good  angels,  and  over  the 
bad  and  good  men.  The  angels  help  God  to  rule  the 
world.  There  are  angels  who  are  attached  to  kingdoms, 
to  nations,  and   to  men,  and   omniscient,  almighty,   and 


CEITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  433 

all-good  God,  who  has  created  them  all,  cast  down  for  ever 
legions  cf  evil  angels,  and  all  men  after  Adam,  but  has  not 
ceased  caring  for  them  in  a  natural  and  even  in  a  supernat- 
ural manner.  This  supernatural  manner  of  his  care  con- 
sists in  this,  that  when  five  thousand  years  had  passed, 
he  found  a  means  for  paying  himself  for  Adam's  sin, 
whom  he  himself  had  made  such  as  he  was.  This  means 
consisted  in  this,  that  among  the  persons  of  the  Trinity 
one  is  the  Son.  He,  that  person,  has  always  been  the 
Son.  So  this  Son  issued  from  a  virgin,  without  impairing 
her  virginity  ;  he  entered  into  the  Virgin  Mary  as  her 
husband,  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  came  out  as  a  Son,  Jesus 
Christ,  and  this  Son  was  called  Jesus,  and  he  was  God, 
and  man,  and  a  person  of  the  Trinity. 

This  God-man  has  saved  men.  This  is  the  way  he 
saved  them.  He  was  a  prophet,  a  high  priest,  and  a  king. 
As  a  prophet,  he  gave  a  new  law ;  as  a  high  priest  he  sac- 
rificed himself  by  dying  on  the  cross,  and  as  a  king  he 
performed  miracles  and  went  down  into  hell,  let  out  from 
it  all  the  righteous,  and  destroyed  sin,  and  the  curse  and 
death  in  men. 

But  this  means,  however  strong  it  was,  did  not  save  all 
men.  Legions  of  legions  of  devils  remained  devils,  and 
men  must  know  how  to  take  advantage  of  that  salvation. 

In  order  to  take  advantage  of  this  means,  a  man  must 
become  sanctified,  but  only  the  church  may  sanctify,  and 
the  church  is  all  those  people  who  say  about  themselves 
that  certain  men  have  laid  their  hands  on  them,  men 
upon  whom  other  men  have  laid  hands,  and  so  forth,  upon 
whom  hands  were  laid  by  the  disciples  of  the  God  Jesus 
himself,  upon  whom  hands  were  laid  by  God  the  Son,  the 
Saviour,  himself.  When  God  himself  laid  his  hands  upon 
them,  he  blew,  and  with  that  blowing  he  gave  to  them, 
and  to  those  to  whom  they  would  transmit  it,  the  power 
to  sanctify  men,  and  that  very  sanctification  is  necessary 
in  order  to  be  saved.     What  sanctifies  man  and  saves  him 


434  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

is  grace,  that  means,  the  divine  power  which  in  a  certain 
form  is  transmitted  by  the  church.  In  order  that  this 
grace  should  be  efficacious,  it  is  necessary  for  the  man 
who  wishes  to  be  sanctified  to  beheve  that  he  is  being 
sanctified.  He  may  even  not  believe  entirely :  he  must 
obey  the  church  and,  above  all,  not  contradict,  and  then 
grace  will  pass  into  him.  In  his  hfe  a  man  who  is 
sanctified  by  grace  must  not  beheve  as  he  has  believed 
before,  he  must  believe  that  if  he  does  good,  he  does  so 
because  grace  is  operating  in  him,  and  so  the  only  care  he 
must  have  is  that  the  grace  shall  be  in  him.  This  grace 
is  transmitted  by  the  church  by  various  manipulations 
and  by  the  pronunciation  of  certain  words,  which  are 
called  sacraments.  There  are  seven  such  manipu- 
lations : 

1.  Baptism.  When  the  hierarch  of  the  church  has 
bathed  a  person  in  the  proper  way,  that  person  becomes 
cleansed  from  sm,  above  all,  from  Adam's  original  sin, 
so  that  if  an  unbathed  infant  dies,  it  will  perish  as  being 
filled  with  sin. 

2.  If  he  anoints  that  person  with  oil,  the  Holy  Ghost 
enters  into  him. 

3.  If  the  person  eats  bread  and  wine  under  certain  con- 
ditions and  with  the  conviction  that  he  is  eating  the  body 
and  blood  of  God,  he  becomes  pure  from  sin  and  receives 
everlasting  hfe. 

(In  general  there  is  a  lot  of  grace  about  this  sacrament 
and,  as  soon  and  as  quickly  as  possible  after  it  has  been 
performed,  a  person  must  pray,  and  then  the  prayer  will 
be  heard  according  to  the  grace.) 

4.  When  the  priest  has  listened  to  that  person's  sins,  he 
will  say  certain  words,  and  the  sins  are  gone. 

5.  When  seven  popes  anoint  a  person  with  oil,  his 
bodily  and  spiritual  diseases  will  be  cured. 

6.  When  the  wreaths  are  put  on  the  bridal  pair,  the 
gift  of  ihe  Holy  Ghost  will  enter  them. 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  435 

7.  When  the  hands  are  laid  on,  the  Holy  Ghost  will 
enter. 

Baptism,  unction  with  chrism,  repentance,  communion 
sanctify  man  and  sanctify  him  for  ever,  independently  of 
the  spiritual  condition  of  the  priest  and  of  him  who 
receives  the  sacrament ;  if  only  everything  is  in  proper 
order,  and  there  is  no  cause  for  cassation. 

In  these  manipulations  hes  that  means  for  salvation 
which  God  has  invented.  He  who  believes  that  he  is 
sanctified  and  purified,  and  will  receive  eternal  life,  is  actu- 
ally sanctified  and  purified  and  will  receive  eternal  hfe. 
All  those  who  believe  in  that  will  receive  their  retribution, 
at  first  a  private  retribution,  soon  after  death,  and  later  a 
general  one,  after  the  end  of  the  world.  The  private 
retribution  will  consist  in  this,  that  they  will  be  glorified 
in  heaven  and  on  earth.  On  earth  their  relics  and  images 
will  be  honoured  with  incense  and  tapers,  and  in  heaven 
they  will  be  with  Christ  in  glory.  But  before  attaining 
that,  they  will  pass  through  aerial  spaces,  where  they  will 
be  stopped  and  questioned  by  angels  and  devils,  who 
will  contend  with  each  other  on  their  account,  and  those 
for  whom  the  defence  of  the  angels  shall  be  stronger  than 
the  accusation  of  the  devils  will  go  to  Paradise,  and  those 
whom  the  devils  shall  win  will  go  to  eternal  torment, 
into  hell. 

The  righteous,  those  who  will  go  to  Paradise,  will  there 
settle  in  various  places,  and  those  who  shall  be  nearer  to  the 
Trinity  may  there,  in  heaven,  pray  for  us  to  God,  and  so 
we  must  here  worsliip  their  relics,  their  garments,  and 
their  images.  These  objects  do  miracles,  and  it  is  neces- 
sary to  pray  to  God  near  these  objects,  and  then  the  saints 
will  intercede  for  us  before  God.  The  sinners,  all  the 
heretics,  the  unbaptized,  the  unbelievers,  those  who  have 
not  received  their  communion,  will  go  to  hell,  but  they 
will  be  there  in  different  places,  according  to  the  degree  of 
their  guilt,  and  there  they  will  be  to  the  end  of  the  world 


436  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

The  prayers  of  the  priests,  especially  such  as  will  be  said 
immediately  after  the  eucharist,  may  alleviate  their  con- 
dition in  hell. 

But  there  will  be  an  end  of  the  world  and  a  general 
judgment.  The  end  of  the  world  will  be  like  this :  one 
person  of  the  Trinity,  God  Jesus,  who  sits  in  the  flesh  in 
heaven  ou  the  right  side  of  his  Father,  will  come  down 
upon  earth  in  a  cloud,  in  the  form  of  a  man,  such  as  he 
had  when  he  was  upon  earth.  Angels  will  blow  trum- 
pets, and  all  the  dead  will  rise  in  their  very  bodies,  but 
the  bodies  will  be  a  little  changed.  Then  all  the  angels, 
all  the  devils,  and  all  men  will  assemble,  and  Christ 
will  judge  and  will  separate  the  righteous  to  the  right : 
they  will  go  to  heaven  with  the  angels ;  and  the  sinners 
he  will  put  on  the  left:  they  will  go  with  the  devils  to 
hell,  and  there  they  will  be  tormented  with  greater  tor- 
ments than  burning.  These  torments  will  be  everlasting. 
But  all  the  righteous  will  eternally  glorify  the  good 
God. 

To  my  question  as  to  what  sense  my  life  will  have 
in  this  life,  the  answer  will  be  as  follows : 

God,  by  his  arbitrary  will,  created  a  strange  world ;  a 
wild  God,  half-man,  half-mouster,  created  the  world  as 
he  wanted  it,  and  he  kept  saying  that  it  was  good,  that 
everything  was  good,  and  that  man  was  good.  But  it 
all  turned  out  bad.  Man  fell  under  a  curse,  and  his  whole 
posterity  was  cursed,  but  God  continued  to  make  men  in 
the  wombs  of  their  mothers,  though  he  knew  that  all 
of  them,  or  many,  would  perish.  After  he  had  invented 
a  means  for  saving  them,  everything  was  as  of  old,  and  even 
worse,  because  while,  as  the  church  says,  men  like  Abra- 
ham and  Jacob  could  save  themselves  by  their  good  lives, 
I  am  now  certainly  going  to  perish,  if  I  was  born  a  Jew, 
or  a  Buddhist,  and  accidentally  do  not  come  in  contact 
with  the  sanctifying  action  of  the  church,  and  I  shall  be 
eternally    tormented   by  the   devils ;  more  than  that,  — 


CRITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY  437 

if  I  am  among  the  number  of  the  fortunate,  but  have  the 
misfortune  to  regard  the  demands  of  my  reason  as  legiti- 
mate and  do  not  renounce  them,  in  order  to  believe  the 
church,  I  perish  just  the  same.  More  than  that,  —  even 
if  I  believe  everything,  but  have  not  had  time  to  receive 
the  last  sacrament  and  my  relatives  absent-mindedly  for- 
get to  pray  for  me,  I  shall  just  as  much  go  to  hell  and 
remain  there. 

According  to  this  teaching  the  meaning  of  my  life  is 
an  absolute  absurdity,  much  worse  than  what  presented 
itself  to  me  by  the  light  of  my  reason.  Then  I  saw  that 
I  was  living  and  was  enjoying  life  so  long  as  J  was 
living,  and  that  when  I  died  I  should  not  feel  any- 
thing. Then  I  was  frightened  by  the  meaninglessness 
of  my  own  life  and  by  the  insolubility  of  the  question : 
What  are  my  strivings,  my  life,  for,  since  all  that  will 
end  ? 

But  now  it  is  much  worse :  all  that  will  not  end,  but 
that  absurdity,  somebody's  arbitrary  will,  lasts  for  ever. 
To  the  question  as  to  how  I  should  live,  the  answer  of 
this  teaching  directly  denies  everything  which  my  moral 
feeling  demands,  and  demands  that  which  has  always 
appeared  as  the  most  immoral  thing  to  me,  — -  hypocrisy. 

From  all  the  moral  applications  of  the  dogmas  there 
results  but  this :  Save  yourself  by  faith ;  you  cannot  un- 
derstand what  you  are  commanded  to  believe,  —  say  that 
you  believe,  crush  out  with  all  the  powers  of  your  soul 
the  necessity  of  light  and  truth,  say  that  you  believe, 
and  do  what  results  from  faith.  The  matter  is  clear. 
In  spite  of  all  the  statements  that  good  works  are  for 
some  reason  necessary,  and  that  it  is  necessary  to  follow 
the  teaching  of  Christ  about  love,  humility,  and  self- 
renunciation,  it  is  evident  that  those  works  are  not 
needed,  and  the  practice  of  life  of  all  the  believers  con- 
firms that.  Logic  is  inexorable.  What  is  the  use  of 
works,  when  I  am  redeemed  by  God's  death,  when  even 


438  CRITIQUE   OF   DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY 

all  my  future  sins  are  redeemed,  and  when  it  is  necessary 
only  to  believe.  And  bow  can  I  struggle  and  strive  after 
the  good,  in  which  alone  I  formerly  understood  good 
works  to  consist,  when  the  main  dogma  of  faith  is  this, 
that  man  cannot  do  anything  by  himself,  and  everything 
is  given  gratis  by  grace.  All  that  is  necessary  is  to  look 
for  grace ;  but  grace  is  not  obtained  by  me  alone  ;  it  is 
imparted  to  me  by  others.  Even  if  I  do  not  succeed  in 
sanctifying  myself  with  grace  during  my  Hfetime,  there 
are  means  for  making  use  of  it  even  after  my  death :  I 
can  leave  money  for  the  church,  and  they  will  pray  for 
me.  All  that  is  asked  of  me  is  that  I  should  try  to  find 
grace.  Grace  is  given  by  sacraments  and  by  the  prayers 
of  the  church,  consequently  I  must  have  recourse  to 
them  and  put  myself  in  such  a  state  that  I  may  never 
be  deprived  of  them ;  I  must  have  popes  around  me  or 
live  near  a  monastery,  and  leave  as  much  money  as  possi- 
ble for  memorial  masses.  More  than  that.  Having  thus 
secured  my  future  life,  I  may  calmly  enjoy  this  life,  and 
for  this  life  make  use  of  the  instruments  given  to  me  by 
the  church,  praying  to  God  the  Provider  to  aid  me  in  my 
earthly  works,  for  I  am  told  in  what  manner  these 
prayers  will  be  most  efficacious.  It  is  most  efficacious  to 
pray  near  images  and  relics,  during  the  liturgy. 

And  the  answer  to  the  question  of  what  I  should  do 
results  directly  from  the  teaching ;  this  answer  is  too 
familiar  to  everybody,  and  too  coarsely  contradicts  con- 
science, but  it  is  inevitable. 

I  remember,  when  I  did  not  yet  doubt  the  teaching  of 
the  church,  I  read  the  words  of  the  Gospel,  Blasphemy 
against  the  Son  of  man  shall  be  forgiven  you,  but  blas- 
phemy against  the  Holy  Ghost  shall  not  be  forgiven  you, 
neither  in  this  world,  neither  in  the  world  to  come,  and 
I  could  not  understand  those  words. 

But  now  those  words  are  only  too  terribly  apparent  to 
me.     Here  is  that  blasphemy   against  the  Holy  Ghost, 


CEITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  439 

which  will  not  be  forgiven,  either  in  this  world,  or  in  that 
to  come. 

That  blasphemy  is  the  terrible  teaching  of  the  church, 
the  foundation  of  which  is  the  teacliing  about  the  church. 


(Just  as  this  volume  -vras  going  through  the  press,  there  ap- 
peared in  P^ngland  a  second  edition  of  the  Russian  original.  It 
comes  in  time  to  be  utilized  for  the  correction  of  a  number  of 
inaccuracies  and  for  the  insertion  of  the  following  conclusion, 
which  is  absent  in  the  first  edition.  What  has  to  be  omitted  is 
a  number  of  unessential  quotations  from  ]VIakd,ri's  Theology. — 
Translator's  Note.') 

The  Orthodox  Church ! 

With  this  word  I  no  longer  can  connect  any  other  con- 
ception than  that  of  a  few  hirsute  men,  extremely  self- 
confident,  deluded,  and  ignorant,  in  silk  and  velvet,  with 
diamond  panagias,  called  bishops  and  metropolitans,  and 
thousands  of  other  hirsute  men,  who  are  in  a  state  of  the 
grossest,  most  servile  servility  to  those  dozens  of  men, 
who,  under  the  guise  of  performing  certain  sacraments, 
are  busy  cheating  and  fleecing  the  people. 

How  can  I  believe  in  this  church,  which  to  man's  pro- 
foundest  questions  about  his  soul  answers  with  petty  de- 
ceptions and  insipidities,  and  affirms  that  no  one  must 
dare  to  answer  these  questions  in  any  other  way,  and  that 
in  everything  which  is  most  precious  in  my  Hfe  I  should 
not  be  guided  by  anything  but  what  it  points  out  to  me  ? 
I  may  choose  the  colour  of  my  pantaloons,  I  may  choose 
my  wife  according  to  my  liking,  but  in  everything  else  — 
precisely  that  in  which  I  feel  myself  to  be  a  man  —  I 
must  be  guided  by  them,  those  idle,  cheating,  and  igno- 
rant people. 

In  my  life,  in  the  holiness  of  my  soul,  I  have  for  a 
guide  and  pastor  the  parish  priest,  a  dull,  illiterate  lad 
who  has  been  let  out  of  the  seminary,  or  a  hard-drinking 
old  man  whose  only  care  it  is  to  take  in  as  many  eggs 

440 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  441 

and  kopeks  as  possible.  They  command  the  deacon  to 
yell  half  the  time,  "  Many  years  for  the  Orthodox,  godly  " 
harlot  Catherine  II.  or  "  for  the  most  godly  Peter,"  the 
robber,  the  murderer,  who  blasphemed  over  the  Gospel, 
and  I  am  compelled  to  pray  for  them.  They  command 
me  to  curse,  burn,  and  hang  my  brothers,  and  I  must  cry 
after  them  ''  anathema."  These  people  command  me  to 
regard  my  brothers  as  cursed,  and  have  to  cry  "  anathema." 
They  command  me  to  drink  wine  out  of  a  spoon  and  swear 
that  it  is  not  wine,  but  the  body  and  blood,  and  I  must  do  so. 

But  this  is  terrible  ! 

It  would  be  terrible,  if  it  were  possible ;  but  in  reality 
it  is  not  so,  not  because  they  have  weakened  in  their  de- 
mands, —  they  still  shout  "  anathema,"  or  •'  many  years," 
if  they  are  commanded  to  do  so,  —  but  because  in  reality 
no  one  listens  to  them. 

We,  the  experienced  and  cultured  people  (I  recall  my 
thirty  years  outside  the  church),  do  not  even  despise 
them :  we  simply  pay  no  attention  to  them  and  do  not 
even  have  the  curiosity  to  know  what  they  are  doing, 
writing,  and  saying.  A  pope  has  come,  —  very  well,  give 
him  half  a  rouble.  A  church  has  been  built  for  vanity's 
sake,  —  very  well,  dedicate  it,  send  for  a  shaggy-maned 
bishop,  and  give  a  hundred  roubles. 

The  masses  pay  still  less  attention  to  them.  During 
Butter  week  we  must  eat  pancakes,  and  during  Pas- 
sion week  we  must  prepare  ourselves  for  communion ;  and 
if  there  arises  a  spiritual  question  for  one  of  our  kind, 
we  go  to  clever,  learned  thinkers,  to  their  books,  or  to  the 
writings  of  the  saints,  but  not  to  the  popes ;  and  the  peo- 
ple from  the  masses  turn  dissenters,  Stundists,  Milkers, 
the  moment  the  religious  sentiment  is  awakened  in  them. 
Thus  the  popes  have  for  a  long  time  been  serving  only 
themselves,  and  the  weak-minded  and  rascals  and  women. 
It  is  to  be  assumed  that  very  soon  they  will  be  instruct- 
ing themselves  only. 


442  CRITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

That  is  so,  but  what  does  this  mean,  that  there  still 
are  wise  men  who  share  this  delusion  ?  What  does  the 
church  mean,  which  has  led  them  into  such  impassable 
forests  of  stupidity  ?  The  church,  according  to  the  defini- 
tion of  the  hierarchs,  is  an  assembly  of  the  believers,  of 
infaUible  and  holy  priests. 

All  of  them  have  asserted  with  one  accord  that  the 
pastors  of  the  church  are  the  true  successors  of  the  apos- 
tles, and  that  they  alone  have  through  the  succession 
received  the  legitimate  power  and  duty  of  being  the 
guardians  and  interpreters  of  the  divine  revelation,  while 
all  the  lay  people  are  to  listen  to  the  voice  of  their  pas- 
tors, and  have  no  right  to  teach. 

"  It  is  not  proper  for  a  layman,"  says  the  64th  rule  of 
the  (Ecumenical  Council,  "  to  utter  words,  or  to  teach  and 
take  upon  himself  the  teacher's  dignity,  but  to  obey 
the  orders  estabhshed  by  God,  to  open  his  ear  to  those 
who  have  received  the  grace  of  the  teacher's  words,  and 
by  them  to  be  instructed  in  the  divine  Word.  For  in  the 
one  church  God  created  various  orders,  according  to  the 
words  of  the  apostle  (1  Cor.  xii.  27,  28),  which  Gregory 
the  Divine  explains,  showing  clearly  the  orders  contained 
in  them,  when  he  says,  '  This  order,  0  brothers,  let  us  re- 
spect and  guard :  let  one  be  the  ear,  and  the  other  the 
mouth,  one  the  hand,  and  the  other  something  else ;  let 
one  teach,  and  the  other  be  taught.'  And  after  a  few 
words  he  proceeds :  '  Let  him  who  learns  be  in  obedience, 
and  him  who  gives  give  with  pleasure,  and  him  who 
serves  serve  with  zeal.  Let  us  not  all  be  the  tongue, 
though  this  be  nearest  to  all,  nor  all  apostles,  nor  all 
prophets,  nor  all  commentators.'  And  after  a  few  words 
he  says  again :  '  Wherefore  hast  thou  made  thyself  a 
shepherd,  being  a  sheep ;  wherefore  dost  thou  make  thy- 
self a  head,  being  a  foot ;  wherefore  dost  thou  pretend  to 
lead  the  armies,  since  thou  art  placed  in  the  rank  of  the 
soldiers  ? '     And  in  another  place  he  enjoins  wisdom . 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  443 

*  Be  not  rash  with  thy  mouth  (EccL  v.  2) ;  being  poor, 
labour  not  to  be  rich  (Prov.  xxiii.  4) ;  try  not  to  be  wiser 
than  the  wise.  And  if  one  be  found  guilty  violating  the 
present  rule,  let  him  be  removed  from  the  communion 
with  the  church  for  the  period  of  forty  days.' " 

After  this  it  is  obvious  in  what  sense  the  word  "  church  " 
is  to  be  taken,  when  reference  is  made  to  its  infallibility 
in  matters  of  teaching.  Infallible,  without  doubt,  is  the 
whole  church  of  Christ  in  general,  which  consists  of  pas- 
tors and  the  flock.  But,  since  the  class  of  pastors  are 
more  particularly  enjoined  to  watch,  preach,  and  interpret 
to  people  the  divine  revelation  (636) ;  since  the  flock  is 
compelled  in  this  holy  matter  unflinchingly  to  follow  the 
voice  of  their  God-given  instructors  (Ephes.  iv.  11-15 ; 
Acts  XX.  28;  Heb.  iv.  13-17),  —  it  is  evident  that  in 
disclosing  the  teaching  of  the  infallibility  of  the  church  it 
is  necessary  above  all  to  have  in  view  the  teaching  church 
(637),  which,  however,  is  inseparably  connected  with  the 
instructed  church  (638). 

From  this  it  is  clear  w^hat  the  church  means  by  church  : 
it  means  nothing  but  the  exclusive  right  for  it  to  teach. 
In  explanation  of  this  right  it  says  that  it  is  infallible. 
And  it  is  infallible,  it  says,  because  it  derives  its  teaching 
from  the  source  of  truth,  —  from  Christ. 

But  the  moment  there  are  two  teachings,  which  equally 
deduce  their  teachings  from  Christ,  this  foundation,  the 
proofs,  and  everything  reared  upon  it  fall  to  pieces,  and 
nothing  is  left  but  incitements  for  such  an  absurd  teach- 
ing. The  impelling  causes  are  as  obvious  now,  at  the 
sight  of  the  palaces  and  carriages  of  the  bishops,  as  they 
were  in  the  sixth  century,  if  we  look  at  the  luxury  of 
the  patriarchs,  and  as  they  were  in  the  first  apostolic 
times,  if  we  take  into  consideration  the  desire  of  each 
teacher  to  confirm  the  truth  of  his  teaching.  The  church 
afiirms  that  its  teaching  is  based  on  the  divine  teaching. 
Proofs  are  incorrectly  adduced  in  this  case  from  the  Acta 


444  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

and  the  epistles,  because  the  apostles  were  the  first  people 
who  put  forth  the  principle  of  the  church,  tlie  truth  of 
w^hich  has  to  be  proved,  and  so  their  doctrine  can  as  little 
as  the  later  doctrine  assert  that  it  is  based  on  Christ's 
teaching.  No  matter  how  near  in  time  they  may  be  to 
Christ,  they  are,  according  to  the  church  doctrine,  men, 
while  he  is  God.  Everything  which  he  said  is  true; 
everything  which  they  said  is  subject  to  proof  and  rejec- 
tion. The  churches  felt  this,  and  so  hastened  to  put  on 
the  apostolic  teaching  the  seal  of  the  infallibility  of  the 
Holy  Ghost.  But  if  we  brush  aside  this  snare  and  take 
up  Christ's  teaching  itself,  we  cannot  help  but  be  struck 
by  that  bold  impudence  with  which  the  teachers  of  the 
church  wish  to  base  their  doctrine  on  the  teaching  of 
Jesus  Christ,  who  denied  all  that  which  they  want  to 
affirm. 

The  word  iKKX-qaia,  which  has  no  other  meaning  than 
that  of  assembly,  is  used  but  twice  in  the  Gospels,  and 
that,  too,  only  in  Matthew :  On  thee,  on  my  faithful  dis- 
ciple, as  on  a  rock,  I  shall  estabhsh  my  union  of  men, 
and  the  other  time  in  this  sense,  that  if  thy  brother  will 
not  hear  tliee,  tell  it  in  an  assembly  of  men,  because  what 
ye  shall  loose  here  (meaning  "  your  anger,  your  aunoy- 
ance  ")  will  be  loosed  in  heaven,  that  is,  in  God.  Now, 
what  have  the  priests  made  of  it  ? 

Having  appeared  upon  earth,  in  order  to  accomphsh  the 
great  work  of  our  redemption,  the  Saviour  at  first  claimed 
only  for  himself  the  right  to  instruct  people  in  the  true 
faith,  wliich  he  had  received  from  the  Father.  The  Spirit 
of  the  Lord  is  upon  me,  because  he  hath  anointed  me  to 
preach  the  gospel  to  the  poor ;  he  hath  sent  me  to  heal 
the  broken-hearted,  to  preach  deliverance  to  the  captives, 
and  recovering  of  sight  to  the  blind,  to  set  at  liberty  them 
that  are  bruised,  to  preach  the  acceptable  year  of  the 
Lord  (Luke  iv.  18,  19);  and  passing  through  the  cities 
and  villages,  preachmg  the  Gospel,  he  added,  To  this  end 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  445 

was  I  born,  and  for  this  cause  came  into  the  world  (John 
xviii.  37),  for  therefore  am  I  sent  (Luke  iv.  43);  enjoin- 
ing at  the  same  time  the  people  and  the  disciples,  But  be 
ye  not  called  Kabbi :  for  one  is  your  master,  even  Christ 
(Matt,  xxiii.  1,  8,  10).  Then  he  transferred  his  divine 
right  of  the  teachership  to  his  disciples,  to  the  twelve  and 
the  seventy,  whom  he  purposely  chose  for  this  great 
ministration  from  the  midst  of  his  hearers  (Luke  vi.  13  ; 
cf.  X.  1,  and  the  following)  :  at  first  he  transferred  it  only 
temporarily  during  the  days  of  his  earthly  existence,  when 
he  sent  them  to  preach  the  Gospel  of  the  kingdom  only  to 
the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel  (Matt.  x.  5-16,  and 
elsewhere),  and  later  for  all  time,  after  his  resurrection, 
when,  having  himself  accomplished  all  his  work  upon 
earth  and  going  up  to  heaven,  he  said  to  them,  As  my 
Father  hatn  sent  me,  even  so  send  I  you  (John  xx.  21); 
go  ye  therefore,  and  teach  all  nations,  baptizing  them  in 
the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  (Matt,  xxviii.  19) ;  and  on  the  other  hand  he  very 
clearly  and  with  terrible  threats  enjoined  all  men  and 
future  Christians  to  receive  the  teaching  of  the  apostles 
and  to  obey  them :  He  that  heareth  you  heareth  me ;  and 
he  that  despiseth  you  despiseth  me ;  and  he  that  despiseth 
me  despiseth  him  that  sent  me  (Luke  x.  16;  cf.  Matt.  x. 
14;  xviii.  15,  19;  Mark  xvi.  16). 

Finally,  at  the  same  time  that  the  Lord  transferred  his 
divine  right  of  the  teachership  to  the  apostles,  he  expressed 
the  wish  that  from  the  apostles  this  right  might  pass 
directly  to  their  successors,  and  from  the  latter,  passing 
from  generation  to  generation,  might  be  preserved  in  the 
world  to  its  very  end.  For  he  said  to  his  disciples,  And 
he  said  unto  them.  Go  ye  into  all  the  world,  and  preach 
the  gospel  to  every  creature.  Go  ye  therefore,  and  teach 
all  nations,  baptizing  them  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  and 
of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost:  Teaching  them  to 
observe  all  things  whatsoever  I  have  commanded  you : 


446  CRITIQUE    OF   DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY 

and  lo,  I  am  with  you  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the 
world  (Mark  xvL  15  ;  Matt,  xxviii.  18-20). 

«  But  these  disciples  evidently  could  not  live  to  the  end 
of  the  world,  and  if  they  were  able  to  preach  the  Gospel 
to  all  the  nations  which  were  contemporaneous  with  them, 
they  certainly  could  not  preach  it  to  the  nations  of  the 
subsequent  times.  Consequently,  in  the  person  of  his 
apostles  the  Saviour  sent  out  all  their  future  successors 
to  the  work  of  the  universal  preaching,  and  also  encour- 
aged them  with  his  presence.  This  is  not  a  simple  divi- 
nation of  the  mind,  but  the  positive  doctrine  of  one  of 
the  apostles  themselves,  who  said  that  Christ  himself  gave 
his  church  not  only  apostles,  prophets,  evangelists,  but 
also  pastors  and  teachers  (Ephes.  iv.  11)." 

Even  if  we  accept  that  incomprehensible,  obviously  in- 
terpolated passage  about  baptizing  in  the  name  of  the 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  there  is  not  a  word 
to  point  to  the  church.  On  the  contrary,  there  is  a  direct 
indication  that  no  one  should  call  himself  a  teacher. 

What  can  more  clearly  be  said  against  the  church, 
according  to  the  ideas  of  the  church?  And  this  very 
place,  as  though  in  ridicule  of  its  exact  meaning,  they 
quote  !  And  against  the  teachership  ?  Not  two  or  three 
passages  speak  against  the  teachers,  but  the  whole  mean- 
ing of  the  Gospel  (We  have  taught  in  thy  name ;  go  into 
eternal  fire,  ye  who  are  working  iniquity)  :  all  the  speeches 
to  the  Pharisees  and  concerning  the  external  worship,  — 
that  the  blind  should  not  lead  the  blind,  for  they  would 
fall  down  together,  —  but  mainly  the  whole  meaning  of 
Jesus'  teaching  in  John  and  m  the  other  gospels.  He 
comes  to  announce  the  good  to  those  who  are  lowly  in 
spirit,  and  he  calls  them  blessed.  He  repeats  several 
times  that  his  teaching  is  accessible  and  intelligible  to 
babes  and  to  the  imprudent,  in  contradistinction  to  the  wise 
and  the  learned.  He  chooses  the  foolish,  the  imprudent, 
the  downtrodden,  and  they  understand  him ;  he  says  that 


CKITIQUE   OF   DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY  447 

he  came,  not  to  teach,  but  to  fulfil ;  and  he  fulfils  w-ith 
his  whole  life.  He  repeats  again  and  again  that  he  who 
will  fulfil  will  find  out  whether  it  is  from  God,  and  that 
blessed  is  he  who  fulfils,  and  not  he  who  teaches :  that  he 
who  fulfils  is  great,  and  not  he  who  teaches.  He  is  angry 
only  with  those  who  teach.  He  says,  Do  not  judge 
others.  He  says  that  he  alone  opened  the  door  for  the 
sheep,  and  that  he  knows  the  sheep,  and  the  sheep  know 
him.  And  there  the  uncalled  pastors  —  the  wolves  in 
sheep's  clotliiug  —  came  in  the  garments  of  harlots,  stood 
up  before  him,  and  said  —  they,  the  doers  of  iniquity  — 
that  not  he,  but  they,  were  the  door  for  the  sheep. 

The  impelling  causes  are  comprehensible,  especially 
during  the  first  times,  when  the  first  Paul  spoke  of  the 
church,  of  the  infalKbihty.  It  is  comprehensible  how  an 
excitable  man,  who  is  carried  away  by  the  true  faith,  may 
have  failed  fully  to  understand  the  spuit  of  the  teacher, 
and  so  departed  from  his  teaching.  It  is  comprehensible 
for  that  nearest  time,  as  well  as  later,  under  the  pressure 
on  Constantine's  power,  how  they  could  have  been  carried 
away  by  the  desire  as  quickly  as  possible  to  establish 
their  external  faith  ;  we  can  understand  all  the  wars  which 
were  waged  in  the  name  of  this  departure  from  the  spirit 
of  the  teaching.  But  the  time  has  come  for  separating 
the  sheep  from  the  goats,  for  they  have  already  separated 
themselves  in  such  a  way  that  the  true  teaching  can  no 
longer  be  met  with  in  the  churches.  And  it  is  clear  that 
the  teachersliip  of  the  church,  though  it  arose  from  a 
small  departure,  is  now  the  worst  enemy  of  Christianity, 
and  that  its  pastors  serve  what  they  please,  except  the 
teaching  of  Jesus,  because  they  reject  it. 

The  doctrine  about  the  teaching  church  is  now  a  doc- 
trine wliich  is  purely  inimical  to  Christianity.  Ha%dng 
departed  from  the  spirit  of  the  teaching,  it  has  corrupted 
it  to  such  an  extent  that  it  has  reached  a  point  where  it 
rejects  it  with  the  whole  life :  instead  of  humihty  there 


448  CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

is  grandeur ;  instead  of  poverty,  luxury ;  instead  of  not 
judging  our  neighbours,  the  most  cruel  condemnation  of 
all ;  iustead  of  forgiving  offences,  hatred  and  wars  ;  in- 
stead of  endurance  of  evil,  puuishments.  And  all  men 
deny  one  another,  but  not  themselves. 

The  name  of  Christ's  kingdom  cannot  save  it,  but  in  its 
definition  there  is,  in  addition  to  the  definition  as  a  church 
of  pastors,  also  another  obscure  definition  as  a  church  of 
the  pastured,  who  must  obey.  What  is  understood  by 
the  first  is  clear,  but  what  is  to  be  understood  by  the 
second  is  completely  obscure. 

An  assembly  of  believers  ? 

If  believers  have  come  together,  believing  in  one  and 
the  same  thing,  they  constitute  an  assembly  of  believers. 
There  is  such  an  assembly  of  believers  in  Wagner's  music, 
an  assembly  of  believers  in  the  social  theory. 

To  them  the  word  "  church "  is  not  applicable,  with 
the  concept  of  iufalliljility,  which  is  attached  to  it,  and 
that  is  all  there  is  to  it.  It  is  an  assembly  of  believers 
and  nothing  else,  and  it  is  impossible  to  see  the  limits  of 
this  church,  because  faith  is  not  a  carnal  matter.  The 
reUgion  of  our  popes  can  indeed  be  felt  in  the  vestments, 
the  panagias,  and  all  the  remaining  nonsense,  but  the 
faith  of  the  believers,  that  one  thing  which  is  the  life 
and  the  light  in  men,  cannot  be  felt,  and  it  cannot  be 
said  where  it  is  and  how  much  there  is  of  it.  Conse- 
quently, this  is  said  only  for  the  purpose  that  the  pastors 
may  have  some  one  to  herd,  and  there  is  no  other  mean- 
ing to  it.  The  church,  all  this  word,  is  the  name  of  a 
deception  by  means  of  which  one  set  of  men  wants  to 
rule  another.  There  is  no  other  church,  and  there  can  be 
none.  Only  in  this  deception,  which  is  based  on  the  true 
teaching  and  is  carried  on  by  all  the  churches,  have  tliere 
appeared  all  those  monstrous  dogmas  which  distort  and 
conceal  the  whole  teaching  of  the  church,  —  such  as  the 
divinity  of  Jesus  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  the  Trinity, 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  449 

and  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  all  the  savage  customs  called 
sacraments ;  it  is  evident  that  they  have  no  sense  and  are 
of  no  use  to  any  one,  except  the  dogma  of  the  sacrament 
of  orders,  which  is  needed  for  the  purpose  of  enabling  men 
to  collect  eggs. 

But  who  would  have  preserved  the  Holy  Scripture  ? 
What  would  people  have  believed  in  and  who  would  have 
taught,  if  there  had  not  been  the  church  ? 

Not  those  have  preserved  the  Holy  Scripture  who  have 
disputed,  but  those  who  have  beheved  and  done.  The 
Holy  Scripture  is  a  tradition  of  days  and  life.  The  only 
teaching  that  is  needed  is  the  one  which  teaches  through 
life,  so  that  their  light  may  shine  before  men.  People 
have  always  believed  in  works  only.  If  ye  believe  not 
me,  believe  my  works.  Neither  I,  nor  any  one  else,  is 
called  to  judge  others,  and  the  past.  I  see  that  works 
alone  are  capable  of  adoption,  and  teach  me  and  the  people, 
and  only  the  doctrine  and  the  controversies  corrupt  the 
people  and  deprive  them  of  faith.  Indeed,  all  these  theo- 
locrical  controversies  were  carried  on  in  reference  to  mat- 
ters  wiiich  are  of  no  use  to  any  one,  which  are  not  the 
subject  of  faith.  It  has  come  to  such  a  pass  that  as 
a  subject  of  faith  there  presents  itself  the  question  as  to 
the  infallibility  of  the  popes  and  of  Mary,  who  bore  a 
child  in  a  strange  manner,  and  so  forth. 

Life  has  never  been  a  subject  of  faith:  it  could  not 
be  the  subject  of  a  controversy,  —  for  how  will  you  show 
faith,  while  I  show  works  ? 

"  But  w^here  is  the  true  church  of  the  true  believers  ? 
How  can  we  find  out  who  is  in  the  right,  and  who  not  ?  will 
those  ask  who  do  not  comprehend  the  teaching  of  Jesus. 
Where  is  the  church,  that  is,  where  are  its  limits  ?  If 
you  are  in  the  church,  you  cannot  see  its  limits.  But 
if  you  are  a  believer,  you  will  say  :  "  How  can  I  be  saved  ? 
What  do  I  care  about  judging  others  ? " 

To  him  who  has  comprehended  the  teaching  of  Jesus, 


450  CEITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY 

the  teaching  consists  in  this,  that  to  me,  to  my  light,  the 
power  is  given  to  go  to  the  hght,  to  me  my  life  is  given. 
Outside  of  it  and  beyond  it  there  is  nothing  but  the 
source  of  all  hfe,  —  God. 

The  whole  teaching  of  humility,  the  renunciation  of 
wealth,  the  love  of  my  neighbour,  has  only  this  meaning, 
that  I  can  make  this  life  infinite  in  itself.  Every  relation 
of  mine  to  another  life  is  only  an  exaltation  of  my  own,  a 
communion  and  oneness  with  it  in  peace  and  in  God. 
Through  myself  only  can  I  comprehend  the  truth,  and 
my  works  are  the  consequences  of  the  exaltation  of  my  life. 

I  can  express  this  truth  in  myself.  What  question  can 
there  be  for  me,  who  understand  life  thus  (I  cannot 
understand  it  otherwise),  as  to  what  others  think,  how 
they  live  ?  As  I  love  them,  I  cannot  help  but  wish  to 
communicate  my  happiness  to  them,  but  the  one  tool 
which  is  given  me  is  the  consciousness  of  my  life  and  its 
works.  I  cannot  wish,  tliink,  believe  for  another.  I  exalt 
my  life,  and  this  alone  can  exalt  the  Kfe  of  another ; 
and  is  not  another  myself  ?  So,  if  I  exalt  myself,  I  exalt 
all. 

I  am  in  them,  and  they  in  me. 

The  whole  teaching  of  Jesus  consists  only  in  what  the 
common  people  repeat  with  simple  words  :  —  to  save  one's 
soul,  —  but  only  one's  own,  because  it  is  everything.  Suf- 
fer, endure  evil,  do  not  judge,  —  all  this  tells  the  same.  At 
every  contact  with  the  affairs  of  the  world  Jesus  teaches 
us  by  his  example  of  complete  indifference,  if  not  con- 
tempt, how  we  must  bear  ourselves  toward  worldly 
matters,  —  toward  raiment,  toward  tribute  for  the  church 
and  for  Csesar,  toward  litigations  about  inheritance,  toward 
the  punishment  of  the  sinning  woman,  toward  the  spilling 
of  the  costly  ointment.  Everything  which  is  not  thy 
soul  is  not  thy  concern.  Seek  the  kingdom  of  God  and 
his  righteousness  in  your  soul,  and  everything  will  be  well. 
Indeed,  my  soul  is  given  into  my  power,  even  as  it  is 


CRITIQUE    OF    DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY  451 

given  to  another.  Souls  other  than  mine  I  not  only 
cannot  rule  over,  hut  am  not  even  ahle  to  compre- 
hend ;  how,  then,  can  I  mend  and  teach  them  ?  And 
how  can  I  waste  ray  strength  on  what  is  not  in  my 
power,  and  overlook  that  which  is  in  my  power  ?  Outside 
the  teaching,  Jesus  showed  by  his  hfe  the  falseness  of  the 
structure  of  this  world,  in  which  all  pretend  to  be  busy 
with  the  good  of  others,  whereas  their  aim  is  nothing  but 
a  pampering  of  their  lust,  a  love  of  darkness.  Look  at 
any  evil  whatsoever,  and  you  wall  see  that  every  man 
gives  out  as  his  pretext  the  good  of  his  neighbour.  When 
you  see  that  a  man  is  taking  hold  of  another,  and  insult- 
ing him,  saying  that  he  is  doing  so  for  the  good  of 
humanity,  try  to  find  out  what  it  is  that  the  man  wants, 
and  you  will  see  that  he  is  doing  it  for  his  own  sake. 

Failing  to  comprehend  all  this,  the  false  faith  has 
enticed  people  into  the  vicious  desire  to  teach  others  and 
has  given  birth  to  the  church  with  all  its  horrors  and  mon- 
strosities. What  will  happen,  if  there  shall  be  no  church  ? 
There  will  be  what  now  is,  what  Jesus  has  said.  He 
spoke,  not  because  he  wanted  to,  but  because  it  is  so. 
He  said,  Do  good  deeds  that  men,  seeing  them,  may 
glorify  God.  And  it  is  only  this  one  teaching  which  will 
be  and  has  been  ever  since  the  world  has  existed.  In 
works  there  is  no  diversity,  but  if  in  the  confession,  in  the 
comprehension,  in  the  external  worship,  there  is  and  shall 
be  any  diversity  of  opinion,  it  does  not  touch  the  faith  and 
the  works,  and  is  in  nobody's  way.  The  church  wanted 
to  unite  these  confessions  and  external  worships,  and 
itself  broke  up  in  innumerable  sects,  one  denying  the 
other,  and  has  thus  shown  that  neither  the  confession  nor 
the  worship  is  a  matter  of  faith.  The  business  of  faith  is 
only  the  life  in  the  faith.  Life  alone  is  higher  than  any- 
thing, and  cannot  be  subjected  to  anything  but  God,  who 
is  cognized  through  life  alone. 


CONTENTS 


— • — 

PAGE 

My  Religion 3 

ON   LIFE 

CHAPTER 

Introduction 225 

I.     The  Fundamental  Contradiction  of  Human 

Life 239 

II.     The  Contradiction  of  Life  Has  Been  Recog- 
nized BY  Men  Since  Remote  Antiquity       .     243 

III.  The  Delusions  of  the  Scribes  .         .         .248 

IV.  The    Doctrine    of   the    Scribes    Substitutes 

THE     Visible     Phenomena    of    His    Animal 
Existence  for  the  Concept  of  the  Whole 
Life  of  Man,  etc.   ......     251 

V.     The  False  Teachings  of  the  Pharisees  and 
OF  THE  Scribes   Do  Not    Give    Any    Expla- 
nations OF   THE  Meanings  of   Actual  Life, 
NOR  Any  Guidance  in  It        .        .        .        .     2.5.5 

VI.     The  Doubling  of  the  Consciousness  in  the 

Men  of  Our  World 2G1 

VII.     The  Doubling  of   the   Consciousness   Is   Due 
TO  Confusing  the   Animal  Life    with   the 

Human  Life 265 

VIIT.     There    Is   No    Doubling    and   No    Contradic- 
tion:   They  Appear  Only  with  the  False 

Teaching 269 

V 


VI 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTEE  PAGE 

IX.     The  Birth  of  the  True  Life  in  Man  .     272 

X.     Reason  Is  That  Law  Cognized  by  Man,  by 

Which    His  Life    Is   to  Be  Accomplished     275 
XI.     The  J"'alse  Direction  of  Knowledge    .         .     278 
XII.     The    Cause    of    the    False    Knowledge    Is 
the  False  Perspective  In  which  Objects 
Present  Themselves 283 

XIII.  The    Knowableness   of    Objects   Does   Not 

Increase  In  Consequence  of  Their  Mani- 
festation in   Space  and   Time,  etc.    .         .     287 

XIV.  Man's  True  Life  Is  Not  What  Takes  Place 

in  Space  and  Time         .....     292 
XV.     The  Renunciation  of  the  Good  of  Animal 

Personality  Is  the  Law  of  Human  Life    .     297 

XVI.     The    Animal    Personality     Is    an    Instru- 
ment OF  Life  ......     301 

XVTI.     Birth  by  the  Spirit 304 

XVIII.     The  Demands  of  the    Rational  Conscious- 
ness   306 

XIX.     The  Confirmation  of  the  Demands  of  the 

Rational  Consciousness       ....     310 
XX.     The     Demand    of    Personality    Seems    In- 
compatible   WITH    THE    Demand    of    the 
Rational  Consciousness        ....     315 

XXL  What  Is  Demanded  Is  Not  a  Renunciation 
OF  Personality,  but  Its  Subjection  to  the 
Rational  Consciousness  ....  318 
XXII.  The  Sentiment  of  Love  Is  the  Manifes- 
tation OF  the  Activity  of  Personality 
Subjected  to  the  Rational  Conscious- 
ness   323 

XXIII.  The  Manifestation  of  the  Feeling  of  Love 

Is     Impossible    for    ]\Ien     Who,   Do     Not 
Understand  the  Meaning  of  Their  Life     327 

XXIV.  True  Love  Is  the  Consequence  of  the  Re- 

nunciation of  the  Good  of  Personality    .     335 


CHAPTER 

XXV. 
XXVI. 


XXVII. 


XXVIII. 


XXIX. 


XXX. 


XXXI. 
XXXII. 

XXXIII. 
XXXIV. 


CONTENTS 

Love  Is  the  Only  Full  Activity  of  the 
True  Life 

The  Endeavours  of  Men,  Directed  upon 
THE  Impossible  Improvement  of  Their 
Existence,  Deprive  Them  of  the  Pos- 
sibility OF  Their  Only,  True  Life 

The  Dread  of  Death  Is  Only  the  Con- 
sciousness OF  the  Unsolved  Contradic- 
tion OF  Life        ...... 

The  Carnal  Death  Destroys  the  Spatial 
Body  and  the  Temporal  Consciousness, 
BUT  Cannot  Destroy  What  Forms  the 
Foundation  of  Life  .... 

The  Terror  of  Death  Is  Due  to  This, 
That  j\Ien  Regard  as  Their  Life  One 
Small  Part  of  It,  Which  Is  Limited 
BY  Their  Own  False  Conception  o,f 
It . 

Life  Is  a  Relation  to  the  World.  The 
Motion  of  Life  Is  the  Establishment 
of  a  New,  Higher  Relation,  and  so 
Death  Is  the  Entrance  into  a  New 
Relation      ....... 

The  Life  of  Dead  People  Does  Not  Cease 
IN  This  AVorld  ...... 

The  Superstition  of  Death  Is  Due  to 
This,  That  Man  Confuses  His  Dif- 
ferent Relations  to  the  World  . 

The  Visible  Life  Is  a  Part  of  the  In- 
finite Motion  of  Life  .  ... 

The  Infxplicability  of  the  Sufferings 
OF  the  Earthly  Existence  Proves  More 
Convincingly  Than  Anything  Else  to 
Man  That  His  Life  Is  Not  a  Life  of 
the  Personality,  Which  Began  with 
Birth  and  Ends  with  Death  . 


Vll 

PAOB 

339 


342 


346 


3.51 


358 


362 

366 

372 
377 


383 


Vlll 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

XXXV. 


PAGE 


Physical  Sufferings  Foiim  the  Xecessary 
Condition  of  the  Life  and  Good  of 
Man 

Conclusion 

Appendix  I. 

Appendix  II. 

Appendix  III. 


Thoughts  of  God    . 

On  the  Meaning  of  Life 


393 
398 
399 

402 
404 

409 
435 


MY    RELIGION 

1884 


MY    RELIGION 


I  HAVE  lived  in  the  world  for  fifty-five  years,  and, 
with  the  exception  of  fourteen  or  fifteen  years  of  my 
childhood,  have  passed  thirty-five  years  as  a  nihilist  in 
the  full  sense  of  the  word,  that  is,  not  as  a  socialist  and 
revolutionist,  as  which  this  word  is  generally  understood, 
but  as  a  nihilist  in  the  sense  of  an  absence  of  every  faith. 

Five  years  ago  I  came  to  believe  in  Christ's  teaching, 
and  my  life  suddenly  became  changed :  I  ceased  desiring 
what  I  had  wished  before,  and  began  to  desire  what  I  had 
not  wished  before.  What  formerly  had  seemed  good  to 
me,  appeared  bad,  and  what  had  seemed  bad,  appeared 
good.  What  took  place  with  me  was  what  takes  place 
with  a  man  who  goes  out  on  some  business  and  suddenly 
decides  on  his  way  that  he  does  not  need  that  business, 
and  returns  home.  And  everything  wliich  was  on  the 
right  is  now  on  the  left,  and  what  was  on  the  left  is  now 
on  the  right :  the  former  desire  —  to  be  as  far  as  possible 
away  from  the  house  —  is  now  changed  to  a  desire  to  be 
as  close  as  possible  to  it.  The  direction  of  my  life,  my 
desires,  became  different :  what  was  good  and  bad  changed 
places.  All  this  was  due  to  the  fact  that  I  came  to  un- 
derstand Christ's  teaching  differently  from  what  I  had 
understood  it  before. 

I  do  not  mean  to  interpret  Christ's  teaching,  but  want 
to  tell  only  how  I  came  to  understand  what  simple,  clear, 

3 


4  MY    KELIGION 

intelligible,  indubitable,  universally  accessible  qualities 
Christ's  teaching  possessed,  and  how  that  which  I  now 
understood  upturned  my  soul  and  gave  me  peace  and 
happiness. 

I  do  not  wish  to  interpret  Christ's  teaching ;  the  one 
thing  I  want  is  to  prevent  men  from  interpreting  it. 

All  the  Christian  churches  have  always  acknowledged 
that  all  men,  who  are  not  equal  in  learning  and  reason,  — 
the  wise  and  the  foolish,  —  are  equal  before  God,  that  the 
divine  truth  is  accessible  to  all.  Even  Christ  said  that  it 
is  the  will  of  God  that  what  is  hidden  from  the  wise  be 
revealed  to  the  unwise. 

Not  all  men  can  be  initiated  into  the  deepest  secrets  of 
dogmatics,  homiletics,  patristics,  liturgies,  hermeneutics, 
apologetics,  and  so  forth,  but  all  men  can  and  ought  to 
understand  what  Christ  has  told  all  the  millions  of  simple, 
unwise  men  who  have  lived  since  his  day.  So  it  is  this, 
which  Christ  told  those  simple  people,  who  had  not  yet 
had  the  chance  of  turning  to  Paul,  to  Clement,  to  Chrys- 
ostom,  and  to  others,  for  the  elucidations  of  his  teaching, 
that  I  had  not  understood  before  and  came  to  understand 
then  :  and  it  is  this  that  I  wish  to  communicate  to  all 
men. 

The  robber  on  the  cross  believed  in  Christ,  and  was 
saved.  Would  it  really  have  been  bad  and  harmful  for 
any  man,  if  the  robber  had  not  died  on  the  cross,  but  had 
come  down  from  it,  and  had  told  all  men  how  he  came  to 
believe  in  Christ  ? 

Even  so  I,  like  the  robber  on  the  cross,  believed  in 
Christ,  and  was  saved.  This  is  not  a  far-fetched  com- 
parison, but  a  very  close  approximation  to  that  spiritual 
condition  of  despair  and  terror  before  life  and  death,  in 
which  I  was  formerly,  and  of  that  condition  of  peace  and 
happiness,  in  which  I  now  am. 

Like  the  robber,  I  knew  that  I  lived  badly,  that  the 
majority  of  men  around  me  lived  as  badly.    Like  the  rob- 


MY    RELIGION  O 

ber,  I  knew  that  I  was  unhappy  and  suffered,  aud  that 
around  me  men  were  as  unhappy  and  suffered  as  much, 
and  saw  no  way  out,  except  death,  from  this  condition. 
Like  the  robber  on  the  cross,  I  was  nailed  by  some  power 
to  this  hfe  of  suffering  and  of  evil. 

And  as  for  the  robber  there  was  in  store  the  terrible 
darkness  of  death  after  senseless  sufferings  and  the  evil 
of  life,  so  also  the  same  was  in  store  for  me. 

In  all  this  I  was  precisely  like  the  robber,  but  there 
was  this  difference  between  the  robber  and  me,  that  he 
was  already  dead,  while  I  was  still  living.  The  robber 
could  believe  that  his  salvation  would  be  there,  beyond 
the  grave :  but  I  could  not  believe  that,  for  besides  the 
life  beyond  the  grave,  I  still  had  to  live  here.  And  I  did 
not  understand  this  life.  It  seemed  terrible  to  me.  Sud- 
denly I  heard  Christ's  words,  and  I  understood  them,  and 
life  and  death  no  longer  appeared  to  me  as  an  evil,  and  in- 
stead of  despair  I  experienced  the  joy  and  happiness  of 
life,  which  are  not  impaired  by  death. 

Can  it  really  harm  any  one,  if  I  tell  how  this  happened 
with  me  ? 


I  HAVE  written  two  large  works,  the  Critique  of  Dog- 
matic Theology,  and  a  new  translation  and  harmonization 
of  the  four  gospels  with  explanations,  in  which  I  explain 
why  I  had  not  comprehended  Christ's  teaching,  and  how 
I  came  to  understand  it.  In  these  works  I  try  method- 
ically, step  by  step,  to  analyze  everything  which  conceals 
the  truth  from  men,  and  verse  after  verse  translate  anew, 
collate,  and  harmonize  the  four  gospels. 

This  work  has  been  going  on  for  six  years.  Every  year, 
every  month,  I  find  new  explanations  and  confirmations  of 
the  fundamental  idea,  correct  the  mistakes  which  have 
crept  in  through  hurry  and  overzeal,  and  add  to  what  has 
been  done.  My  life,  of  which  not  much  is  left,  will,  no 
doubt,  be  ended  before  this  work.  But  I  am  convinced 
that  this  labour  is  needed,  and  so  I  do  what  I  can,  while 
I  live. 

Such  has  my  assiduous  external  work  been  on  the  theol- 
ogy, on  the  gospels.  But  the  internal  work,  of  which  I 
wish  to  tell  here,  was  different.  It  was  not  a  methodical 
investigation  of  the  theology  and  texts  of  the  gospels,  but 
a  sudden  removal  of  everything  which  concealed  the  very 
meaning  of  the  teaching,  and  a  sudden  illumination  by  the 
light  of  truth.  It  was  an  event  which  was  like  what  would 
happen  to  a  man  who  from  a  false  drawing  tries  to  recon- 
struct a  statue  out  of  a  heap  of  small  pieces  of  marble, 
when  suddenly  he  discovers  from  one  insignificant  piece 
that  it  is  an  entirely  different  statue,  and,  having  begun 
the  new  reconstruction,  suddenly  sees  the  confirmation  of 
his  idea,  instead  of  the  former  incoherency  of  the  frag- 

6 


Si 


'SS 


E-. 


MY   RELIGION  7 

ments,  in  every  piece,  which  with  all  its  lines  combines 
with  the  neighbouring  pieces  and  forms  one  whole.  It 
was  this  that  happened  with  me.  And  of  this  I  wish  to 
tell. 

I  want  to  tell  how  I  found  this  key  for  the  comprehen- 
sion of  the  teaching  of  Christ,  who  revealed  to  me  the 
truth  with  a  clearness  and  a  conclusiveness  that  exclude 
every  doubt. 

This  discovery  was  made  by  me  in  the  following  man- 
ner: ever  since  the  first  period  of  my  childhood,  when  I 
began  to  read  the  Gospel  for  myself,  I  was  most  touched 
and  affected  by  that  teaching  of  Christ,  where  he  preaches 
love,  meekness,  humility,  self-renunciation,  and  retribution 
of  evil  with  good.  Such  always  remained  for  me  the 
essence  of  the  Christian  teaching,  and  I  loved  it  with  my 
heart,  and  in  the  name  of  it  I,  after  despair  and  unbelief, 
recognized  as  true  the  meaning  which  the  labouring  people 
ascribe  to  the  Christian  life,  and  in  the  name  of  it  I  sub- 
jected myself  to  the  beliefs  which  these  people  confess 
that  is  to  the  Orthodox  Church. 

But,  in  submitting  to  the  church,  I  soon  observed  that 
I  should  not  find  in  the  church  doctrine  the  confirmation 
and  elucidation  of  those  principles  of  Christianity  which 
to  me  seemed  to  be  of  greatest  importance :  I  observed 
that  this  essence  of  Christianity,  which  was  so  dear  to  me, 
did  not  form  the  chief  point  in  the  church  doctrine.  I 
observed  that  that  which  to  me  seemed  to  be  cf  most  im- 
portance in  Christ's  teaching  was  not  regarded  as  such  by 
the  church.  The  church  regarded  something  else  as  of 
greatest  importance.  At  first  I  did  not  ascribe  any  mean- 
ing to  this  peculiarity  of  the  church  teaching. 

Well,  I  thought,  in  addition  to  the  meaning  of  love, 

humility,  self-renunciation,  the  church  recognizes  also  the 

dogmatic,  the  external  meaning.     This  meaning  is  foreign 

to  me,  even  repels  me,  but  there  is  nothing  harmful  in  it. 

But  the  longer  I  lived,  submitting  to  the  church  doc- 


8  MY    RELIGION 

trine,  the  more  obvious  it  became  to  me  that  this  peculi- 
arity of  the  church  doctrine  was  not  so  immaterial  as  it 
had  seemed  to  me  to  be  at  first.  What  repelled  me  from 
the  church  was  the  strangeness  of  the  church  dogmas, 
and  the  recognition  and  approval  given  by  the  church  to 
persecutions,  capital  punishment,  and  wars,  and  the  mu- 
tual rejection  of  the  various  creeds ;  but  what  shattered 
my  confidence  in  it  was  that  indifference  to  what  to  me 
seemed  to  be  the  essence  of  Christ's  teaching  and  the  bias 
for  what  I  regarded  as  inessential.  But  I  could  not  make 
out  what  was  wrong;  I  could  not  make  it  out,  because 
the  3hurch  doctrine,  far  from  denying  that  which  to  me 
seemed  to  be  of  prime  importance  in  Christ's  teaching, 
fully  recognized  it,  but  it  did  so  in  such  a  way  that  what 
was  of  prime  importance  in  Christ's  teaching  did  not 
occupy  the  first  place,  I  could  not  rebuke  the  church  for 
denying  the  essential  things,  but  the  church  recognized 
them  in  such  a  way  that  they  did  not  satisfy  me.  The 
church  did  not  give  me  what  I  expected  from  it. 

I  passed  from  nihilism  to  the  church  only  because  I 
was  conscious  of  the  impossibility  of  living  without  faith, 
without  the  knowledge  of  what  is  good  and  what  bad,  in 
spite  of  my  animal  instincts.  I  hoped  to  find  this  knowl- 
edge in  Christianity.  But  Christianity,  as  it  presented 
itself  to  me  at  that  time,  was  only  a  certain,  very  indefi- 
nite mood,  from  which  did  not  result  clear  and  obligatory 
rules  of  life.  I  turned  to  the  church  for  these  rules.  But 
the  church  gave  me  such  rules  as  did  not  in  the  least 
bring  me  nearer  to  the  Christian  mood,  which  was  so  dear 
to  me,  and  only  removed  me  farther  from  it,  and  I  could 
not  follow  it.  The  life  which  was  based  on  the  Christian 
truths  was  necessary  and  dear  to  me  ;  but  the  church  gave 
me  rules  of  life  which  were  entirely  foreign  to  the  truths 
which  I  valued  so  highly.  I  did  not  need  the  rules 
which  the  church  gave  me  about  the  belief  in  dogmas, 
about  the  observance  of  sacraments,  fasts,  and  prayers,  and 


MY    RELIGION  9 

there  were  none  that  were  based  on  the  Christian  truths. 
Moreover,  the  church  rules  weakened,  and  at  times 
destroyed  outright,  that  Christian  mood,  which  alone  gave 
me  the  meaning  of  my  life.  What  troubled  me  more  than 
anything  else  was  that  all  the  human  evil  —  the  condem- 
nation of  private  individuals,  of  whole  nations,  of  other 
creeds,  and  the  executions  and  wars,  which  resulted  from 
such  condemnations  —  was  all  justified  by  the  church. 
Christ's  teaching  about  meekness,  about  refraining  from 
condemnations,  about  forgiveness  of  offences,  self-renunci- 
ation, and  love,  was  exalted  by  the  church  in  words,  and 
yet,  in  fact,  that  which  was  incompatible  with  this  teach- 
ing was  justified  by  it. 

Could  it  be  that  Christ's  teaching  was  such  that  these 
contradictious  ought  to  exist  ?  I  could  not  believe  it. 
Besides,  it  had  always  seemed  strange  to  me  that,  in  so  far 
as  I  knew  the  Gospel,  those  passages  on  which  the  defi- 
nite rules  of  the  church  about  the  dogmas  were  based 
were  the  most  obscure  of  all,  while  those  from  which 
resulted  the  execution  of  the  teaching  were  most  definite 
and  clear.  And  yet,  the  dogmas  and  the  obligations  of 
a  Christian  which  result  from  them  were  defined  by  the 
church  in  a  most  clear  and  precise  manner ;  while  the 
execution  of  the  teaching  was  mentioned  by  it  in  most 
obscure,  hazy,  mystical  terms. 

Is  it  possible  Christ  had  that  in  mind,  when  he  im- 
parted his  teaching  to  men  ?  The  solution  of  my  doubts 
I  could  find  only  in  the  gospels,  and  I  read  and  re-read 
them.  Out  of  all  the  gospels  the  sermon  on  the  mount 
always  stood  out  as  something  special,  and  I  read  it  often- 
est  of  all.  Nowhere  else  does  Christ  speak  with  such 
solemnity  as  in  this  place ;  nowhere  else  does  he  give  so 
many  moral,  clear,  intelligible  rules,  which  reecho  at  once 
in  the  hearts  of  all  men  ;  nowhere  does  he  speak  to  a 
greater  assembly  of  all  kinds  of  simple  people.  If  there 
existed  clear,  definite  Christian  rules,  they  must  be  ex- 


10  MY    RELIGION 

pressed  here.  lu  these  three  chapters  of  Matthew  I  tried 
to  find  an  explanation  of  what  troubled  me.  Many,  many 
a  time  did  I  read  the  sermon  on  the  mount,  and  every 
time  I  experienced  the  same  feelings  of  enthusiasm  and 
meekness  of  spirit,  as  I  read  the  verses  about  offering  the 
cheek,  giving  up  the  coat,  making  peace  with  all  men,  and 
loving  our  enemies,  and  the  same  feeling  of  dissatisfac- 
tion. The  words  of  God,  which  were  directed  to  all  men, 
were  not  clear.  There  was  demanded  a  too  impossible 
renunciation  of  everything,  which  destroyed  life  itself,  as 
I  understood  it,  and  so  the  renunciation  of  everything, 
I  thought,  could  not  be  a  peremptory  condition  of  salva- 
tion. And  as  long  as  it  was  not  a  peremptory  condition 
of  salvation,  there  was  nothing  definite  and  clear. 

I  read  not  only  the  sermon  on  the  mount,  but  also  all 
the  gospels  and  all  the  theological  commentaries  upon 
them.  The  theological  explanations,  that  the  utterances 
of  the  sermon  on  the  mount  were  an  indication  of  that 
perfection  toward  which  man  must  strive,  but  that  the 
fallen  man  was  abiding  in  sin  and  could  not  with  his 
powers  attain  this  perfection,  and  that  man's  salvation 
was  in  faith,  prayer,  and  grace,  did  not  satisfy  me. 

I  could  not  agree  to  this,  because  it  had  always  seemed 
strange  to  me  why  Christ,  who  knew  in  advance  that  the 
execution  of  his  teaching  was  impossible  with  the  human 
powers  alone,  gave  such  clear  and  beautiful  rules,  which 
had  reference  directly  to  every  individual  man.  As  I  read 
these  rules,  it  seemed  to  me  that  they  had  special  ref- 
erence to  me  and  demanded  that  I,  if  no  one  else,  should 
execute  them. 

As  I  read  these  rules,  I  was  always  overcome  by  the 
joyful  certainty  that  I  could  henceforth,  from  that  very 
hour,  do  all  that.  I  wanted  and  tried  to  do  it ;  but  the 
moment  I  experienced  a  struggle  in  the  execution,  I  in- 
voluntarily recalled  the  teaching  of  the  church  that  man 
is  weak  and  cannot  do  it  of  himself,  and  I  weakened. 


MY    RELIGION  11 

I  was  told  that  we  must  believe  and  pray. 

But  I  felt  that  I  had  little  faith,  and  so  could  not  pray. 
I  was  told  that  I  must  pray  so  that  God  might  give  me 
faith,  that  faith  which  gives  prayer,  which  gives  that  faith, 
which  gives  that  prayer,  and  so  on,  ad  infinitum. 

But  reason  and  experience  showed  me  that  only  my 
efforts  to  carry  out  Christ's  teaching  could  be  real :  and  so, 
after  many,  many  vain  searchings  and  studies  of  what  had 
been  written  in  proof  of  the  divinity  of  this  teaching  and 
in  proof  of  its  un-divinity,  after  many  doubts  and  suffer- 
ings, I  was  again  left  alone  with  my  heart  and  with  the 
mysterious  book  before  me.  I  could  not  give  it  the  mean- 
ing which  others  ascribed  to  it,  and  could  find  no  other 
meaning  for  it,  and  yet  could  not  reject  it.  And  only 
after  I  had  lost  faith  in  all  the  interpretations  of  both  the 
learned  criticism  and  the  learned  theology,  and  had  rejected 
them  all,  according  to  Christ's  saying.  If  you  receive  me 
not  as  do  the  children,  you  will  not  enter  into  the  king- 
dom of  God,  did  I  suddenly  understand  what  I  had  not 
understood  Ijefore.  I  did  not  understand  because  I  in 
some  way  artificially  and  cunningly  transposed,  collated, 
interpreted ;  on  the  contrary,  everything  was  revealed  to 
me  because  I  forgot  all  interpretations.  The  passage 
which  for  me  was  the  key  to  the  whole  was  Verses  38 
and  39  of  the  fifth  chapter  of  Matthew.  It  hath  been 
said.  An  eye  for  an  eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth :  but  I 
say  unto  you,  That  ye  resist  not  evil.  I  suddenly  for  the 
first  time  understood  the  last  verse  in  its  direct  and  simple 
meaning.  I  understood  that  Christ  said  precisely  what 
he  said.  And  immediately,  not  something  new  appeared, 
but  there  disappeared  that  which  obscured  the  truth,  and 
truth  arose  before  me  in  all  its  significance.  Ye  have 
heard  that  it  hath  been  said.  An  eye  for  an  eye,  and  a 
tooth  for  a  tooth :  but  I  say,  Do  not  resist  evil.  These 
words  suddenly  appeared  entirely  new  to  me,  as  though 
I  had  never  met  them  before. 


12  MY    RELIGION 

Formerly,  when  I  read  this  passage,  I  always,  by  some 
strange  blindness,  omitted  the  words,  But  I  say.  Do  not 
resist  evil.  It  was  as  though  these  words  did  not  exist, 
or  had  no  definite  meaning. 

Later  I  frequently  had  occasion  in  my  conversations 
with  many,  very  many  Christians,  who  knew  the  Gospel, 
to  observe  the  same  blindness  in  respect  to  these  words. 
Nobody  remembered  these  words,  and  often,  when  talking 
about  this  passage,  Christians  would  take  up  the  Gospel 
in  order  to  assure  themselves  that  the  words  were  there. 
Similarly  I  used  to  omit  the  words,  and  began  to  under- 
stand only  from  the  next  words  on,  But  whosoever  shall 
smite  thee  on  thy  right  cheek,  turn  to  him,  etc.  And 
these  words  always  presented  themselves  to  me  as  a 
demand  for  sufferings  and  privations  which  are  not  proper 
to  human  nature.  These  words  affected  me,  and  I  felt 
that  it  would  be  nice  to  fulfil  them.  At  the  same  time  I 
felt  that  I  should  never  be  able  to  fulfil  them,  merely  to 
suffer.  I  said  to  myself.  Very  well,  I  will  turn  my  other 
cheek  to  a  man,  and  he  will  strike  me  a  second  time  ;  I 
will  give  them  what  they  ask  of  me,  and  they  will  take 
everything  from  me.  I  shall  have  no  life.  Life  is  given 
to  me,  why  should  I  deprive  myself  of  it  ?  Christ  could 
not  have  asked  for  this. 

Formerly  I  used  to  say  that  to  myself,  imagining  that 
in  these  words  Christ  praised  sufferings  and  privations, 
and,  praising  them,  was  speaking  in  exaggeration  and  so 
without  precision  or  clearness ;  but  now  that  I  came  to 
understand  the  saying  about  non-resistance  to  evil,  it 
became  clear  to  me  that  Christ  did  not  exaggerate  at  all 
and  did  not  demand  any  suffering  for  the  sake  of  suffer- 
ing, but  meant  very  definitely  and  clearly  what  he  said. 

He  said.  Do  not  resist  evil ;  and  doing  so,  remember 
that  there  will  be  found  people  who,  having  struck  you 
on  one  cheek  and  finding  no  resistance,  will  strike  you  on 
the  other  also;  having  taken  your  coat,  will  take  your 


MY    RELIGION  13 

cloak  also ;  having  made  use  of  your  labour,  will  compel 
you  to  work  more ;  who  will  take  without  returning. 
And  when  this  happens,  you  must  still  not  resist  evil. 
Continue  to  do  good  to  those  who  will  strike  and  ofi'end  you. 

And  when  I  comprehended  these  words,  in  the  manner 
in  which  they  were  said,  everything  which  had  been  dark 
became  clear,  and  what  had  seemed  exaggerated  became 
entirely  clear.  I  understood  for  the  first  time  that  the 
centre  of  gravity  of  the  whole  thought  was  in  the  words. 
Do  not  resist  evil,  and  that  what  follows  is  only  an 
explanation  of  the  first  proposition.  I  understood  that 
Christ  does  not  at  all  command  us  to  offer  our  cheek  and 
give  up  our  coat  in  order  that  we  may  suffer,  but  com- 
mands us  not  to  resist  evil,  and  says  that,  in  doing  so,  we 
may  also  have  to  suffer.  Just  as  a  father,  sending  his  sou 
out  on  a  long  journey,  does  not  order  him  to  stay  awake 
nights,  go  without  eating,  be  drenched,  and  freeze,  w^hen 
he  says,  Travel  on  the  road,  and  even  if  you  are  to  be 
drenched  and  frozen,  keep  to  the  road,  —  so  Christ  does 
not  say.  Offer  your  cheek,  suffer,  but.  Do  not  resist  evil, 
and  no  matter  what  may  happen  to  you,  do  not  resist  evil. 

These  words.  Do  not  resist  evil,  understood  in  their 
direct  sense,  were  for  me  indeed  the  key  that  opened 
everything  to  me,  and  I  marvelled  how  I  could  have  so 
perverted  the  clear,  definite  words.  You  have  been  told, 
A  tooth  for  a  tooth,  and  I  say,  Do  not  resist  evil,  and  no 
matter  what  evil  persons  may  do  to  you,  suffer,  give  up, 
but  do  not  resist  evil.  What  can  be  clearer,  more  intelli- 
gible, and  more  indubitable  than  this  ?  I  needed  only  to 
understand  these  w^ords  in  a  simple  and  direct  manner, 
just  as  they  were  said,  and  everything  in  Christ's  teaching, 
not  merely  in  the  sermon  on  the  mount,  but  in  all  the 
gospels,  everything  which  had  been  tangled,  became  clear  ; 
what  had  been  contradictory  became  concordant ;  and, 
above  all  else,  what  had  seemed  superfluous  became  neces- 
sary.    Everything  welded  into  one  whole  and  each  thing 


14  MY    RELIGION 

indubitably  confirmed  everything  else,  as  pieces  of  a  bro- 
ken statue,  when  they  are  recomposed  as  they  ought  to  be. 
In  this  sermon  and  in  all  the  gospels  the  same  teaching 
of  non-resistance  to  evil  was  confirmed  on  all  sides. 

In  this  sermon,  as  in  all  other  passages,  Christ  repre- 
sents to  himself  his  disciples,  that  is,  the  men  who  carry 
out  the  rule  of  non-resistance  to  evil,  not  otherwise  than 
men  who  offer  their  cheek  and  give  up  their  cloak,  as 
persecuted,  beaten,  and  poor. 

Christ  says  again  and  again  that  he  who  has  not  taken 
the  cross,  who  has  not  renounced  everything,  that  is,  he 
who  is  not  prepared  for  all  the  consequences  arising  from 
the  execution  of  the  rule  of  non-resistance  to  evil,  cannot 
be  his  disciple.  To  his  disciples  Jesus  says.  Be  mendi- 
cants ;  be  prepared,  while  not  resisting  evil,  to  receive 
persecutions,  suffering,  and  death  :  he  prepares  himself  for 
suffering  and  death,  without  resisting  the  evil  men,  and 
sends  away  Peter,  who  is  sorry  about  it,  and  dies  himself, 
forbidding  men  to  resist  evil,  and  without  becoming  untrue 
to  his  teaching. 

All  his  first  disciples  carry  out  this  rule  of  non-resist- 
ance, and  pass  all  their  life  in  poverty  and  persecutions, 
and  never  repay  evil  with  evil. 

Consequently  Jesus  says  exactly  what  he  says.  We 
may  affirm  that  the  constant  execution  of  this  rule  is  very 
difficult ;  we  may  not  agree  with  this,  that  every  man 
will  be  blessed  in  carrying  out  this  rule ;  we  may  say 
that  it  is  foolish,  as  the  unbehevers  say,  that  Christ  was 
a  dreamer  and  idealist,  who  uttered  impracticable  rules, 
which  his  disciples  in  their  foohshness  carried  out ;  but  we 
cannot  fail  to  admit  that  Christ  very  clearly  and  defi- 
nitely said  what  he  wanted  to  say,  namely,  that  man, 
according  to  his  teaching,  must  not  resist  evil,  and  that, 
therefore,  he  who  has  accepted  his  teaching  cannot  resist 
evil.  And  yet  neither  believers,  nor  unbelievers,  under- 
stand this  simple  and  clear  meaning  of  Christ's  words. 


n. 

When  I  understood  that  the  words,  Do  not  resist  evil, 
meant,  Do  not  resist  evil,  all  my  former  conception  of  the 
meaning  of  Christ's  teaching  suddenly  changed,  and  I  was 
horrified,  not  at  the  lack  of  comprehension,  but  at  the 
strange  comprehension  of  the  teaching,  in  which  I  had 
lived  until  then.  I  knew,  we  all  know,  that  the  meaning 
of  the  Christian  teaching  is  in  the  love  for  men.  To  say 
that  we  must  offer  our  cheek  and  love  our  enemy  is  to 
express  the  essence  of  Christianity.  I  knew  this  siuce 
childhood,  but  why  had  I  not  understood  these  simple 
words  in  a  simple  manner,  and  why  had  I  looked  in  them 
for  some  allegorical  meaning  ?  Do  not  resist  evil,  means, 
Never  resist  evil,  that  is,  never  use  violence,  that  is,  do  not 
commit  an  act  which  is  always  opposed  to  love.  And  if 
thou  shalt  be  offended  in  doing  so,  endure  the  insult,  and 
still  use  no  violence  against  others.  He  has  said  this  as 
clearly  and  as  simply  as  it  can  be  said.  How,  then, 
could  I,  who  believed,  or  tried  to  believe,  that  he  who 
said  this  was  God,  say  that  it  was  impossible  to  do  this 
with  one's  own  strength  ? 

My  master  says  to  me,  Go  and  chop  some  wood ;  and 
I  reply  to  him,  I  cannot  do  this  with  my  own  strength. 
When  I  say  so,  I  say  one  of  two  things :  either  that  I  do 
not  believe  in  what  my  master  is  telling  me,  or  that  I 
do  not  wish  to  do  what  my  master  wants  me  to  do.  Of 
the  commandment  of  God,  which  he  gave  to  be  kept,  and 
of  which  he  said,  He  who  shall  keep  it  and  teach  so, 
shall  be  accounted  greater,  and  so  forth,  and  of  which  he 

said  that  only  those  who  fulfil  it  receive  life,  of  the  com- 

15 


16  MY    RELIGION 

mandment,  which  he  himself  kept,  and  which  he  ex- 
pressed so  clearly  and  simply  that  there  cannot  be  any  doubt 
as  to  its  meaning,  of  this  commandment  I,  who  had  never 
even  attempted  to  keep  it,  said,  Its  execution  is  impossible 
with  my  own  strength,  —  I  must  have  a  supernatural  aid 

God  came  down  upon  earth  to  give  salvation  to  men. 
The  salvation  consists  in  this,  that  the  second  person  of 
the  Trinity,  God  the  Son,  suffered  for  men,  redeemed  their 
sin  before  the  Father,  and  gave  men  the  church,  in  which 
is  preserved  the  grace  that  is  transmitted  to  those  who 
believe ;  besides  all  this,  this  God  the  Son  gave  men  a 
teaching  and  an  example  of  life  for  salvation.  How,  then, 
could  I  say  that  the  rules  of  life,  which  are  so  simply 
and  so  clearly  expressed  for  all,  are  so  hard  to  execute 
that  this  cannot  be  done  without  supernatural  aid  ?  He 
not  only  said  nothing  of  the  kind,  but  said  definitely, 
By  all  means  fulfil  it,  and  he  who  will  not  fulfil  it,  will 
not  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  And  he  never  said 
that  the  execution  was  difficult,  but,  on  the  contrary.  My 
yoke  is  good,  and  my  burden  light ;  John  the  evangelist 
said,  His  commandments  are  not  hard.  How,  then, 
could  I  say  that  that  which  God  has  commanded  men  to 
do ;  that  that,  the  execution  of  which  he  so  clearly 
defined,  and  of  which  he  said  that  it  was  easy  to  do  it ; 
that  that  which  he  himself  executed  as  a  man,  and  which 
his  first  followers  executed ;  how  could  I  say  that  this 
execution  was  so  difficult  that  it  was  even  impossible 
without  supernatural  aid  ? 

If  a  man  puts  all  the  effort  of  his  mind  on  destroying 
a  certain  law,  what  more  effective  objection,  in  order  to 
destroy  this  law,  could  the  man  bring  forward  than  that 
this  law  is  by  its  essence  impracticable,  and  that  the  law- 
giver held  in  respect  to  his  law  that  it  was  impracticable, 
and  that  supernatural  aid  is  necessary  in  order  that  it  be 
executed  ?  It  was  precisely  this  that  I  thought  in  respect 
to  the  commandment  of  non-resistance  to  evil. 


MY    RELIGION  17 

I  tried  to  recall  how  and  when  this  strange  idea  had  got 
into  my  mind  that  Christ's  law  was  divine,  but  that  it  could 
not  be  executed ;  and  analyzing  my  past,  I  understood 
that  this  idea  had  never  been  communicated  to  me  in  all 
its  nakedness  (it  would  have  repelled  me),  but  that  I, 
imperceptibly  to  myself,  had  imbibed  it  with  my  mother's 
milk  from  my  earliest  childhood,  and  that  my  subsequent 
life  ouly  confirmed  me  in  this  strange  delusion. 

I  have  been  taught  since  childhood  that  Christ  is  God 
and  his  teaching  divine,  but,  at  the  same  time,  I  was 
taught  to  respect  the  institutions  which  through  force 
secured  my  imnumity  from  evil,  —  I  was  taught  to  respect 
these  institutions  as  sacred.  I  was  taught  to  resist  evil, 
and  was  impressed  with  the  idea  that  .it  is  base  aud  dis- 
graceful to  submit  to  evil  and  to  suffer  from  it,  and  praise- 
worthy to  resist  it.  I  was  taught  to  judge  and  punish. 
Then  I  was  taught  to  make  war,  that  is,  to  resist  evil 
men  with  murder,  and  the  military  caste,  of  which  I  was  a 
member,  was  called  the  Christ-loving  military,  and  their  ac- 
tivity was  sanctified  by  a  Christian  blessing.  Besides,  from 
childhood  up  to  my  manly  estate  I  had  been  taught  to 
respect  what  directly  opposed  Christ's  law.  To  resist  the 
offender,  to  avenge  by  the  use  of  violence  a  personal, 
family,  national  insult,  —  all  this  they  not  only  did  not 
deny,  but  impressed  upon  me  as  something  beautiful  and 
not  contrary  to  Christ's  law. 

Everything  which  surrounded  me,  my  family's  peace 
and  their  safety  and  my  own,  my  property,  everything 
was  based  on  the  law  which  Christ  rejected,  on  the  law, 
A  tooth  for  a  tooth. 

The  church  teachers  taught  that  Christ's  teaching  was 
divine,  but  that  its  execution  was  impossible  on  account 
of  human  weakness,  and  that  only  Christ's  grace  could 
cooperate  in  its  execution.  The  worldly  teachers  and  all 
the  structure  of  life  directly  recognized  the  impracticability 
and  visionariness  of  Christ's  teaching,  and  by  their  words 


18  MY    RELIGION 

and  deeds  taught  what  was  contrary  to  this  teaching. 
This  recognition  of  the  impracticableness  of  God's  teach- 
ing had  so  slowly  and  so  imperceptibly  percolated  in  me 
and  become  habitual  with  me,  and  to  such  a  degree  coinci- 
ded with  my  lusts,  that  I  had  never  before  noticed  the  con- 
tradiction in  which  I  lived.  I  did  not  see  that  it  was  not 
possible  at  one  and  the  same  time  to  confess  Christ  the 
God,  the  foundation  of  whose  teaching  is  non-resistance 
to  evil,  and  consciously  and  calmly  to  work  for  the 
establishment  of  property,  of  courts,  government,  and 
army  ;  to  establish  a  life  which  was  contrary  to  the  teach- 
ing of  Christ,  and  to  pray  to  this  Christ  that  the  law  of 
non-resistance  to  evil  and  of  forgiveness  be  fulfilled 
among  us.  It  did  not  yet  occur  to  me,  what  now  is 
so  clear,  that  it  would  be  much  simpler  to  arrange  and 
establish  life  according  to  Christ's  law,  and  then  only  to 
pray  for  courts,  executions,  and  wars,  if  they  are  so 
necessary  for  our  good. 

And  I  understood  whence  my  delusion  came.  It  arose 
from  confessmg  Christ  in  words  and  denying  him  in  fact. 

The  proposition  about  non-resistance  to  evil  is  a  prop- 
osition which  binds  the  teaching  together,  but  only  when 
it  is  not  an  utterance  but  a  rule  which  must  be  executed, 
—  when  it  is  a  law. 

It  is  indeed  a  key  which  unlocks  everything,  but  only 
when  the  key  is  put  into  the  lock.  The  recognition  of 
this  proposition  as  an  utterance,  which  is  impossible 
of  execution  without  supernatural  aid,  is  an  annihilation  of 
the  whole  teaching.  How  can  such  a  teaching,  from 
which  the  fundamental,  binding  principle  has  been  re- 
moved, present  itself  otherwise  than  as  impossible  ?  But 
to  unbelievers  it  simply  appears  stupid,  and  it  cannot 
appear  in  any  other  light. 

To  put  up  an  engine,  fire  the  boiler,  set  the  engine  in 
motion,  and  not  connect  the  transmitting  belt,  —  it  is 
precisely  this  that  has  been  done  with  Christ's  teaching, 


MY   RELIGION  19 

when  they  began  to  teach  that  a  man  may  be  a  Christian 
without  executing  the  proposition  about  non-resistance  to 
evil. 

A  little  while  ago  I  read  the  fifth  chapter  of  Matthew 
with  a  Jewish  rabbi.  At  nearly  every  utterance  the 
rabbi  said,  "  This  is  in  the  Bible,  this  is  in  the  Talmud," 
and  pointed  out  to  me  in  the  Bible  and  in  the  Talmud 
utterances  which  very  closely  resembled  those  in  the 
sermon  on  the  mount.  But  when  we  reached  the  verse 
about  non-resistance  to  evil,  he  did  not  say,  This,  too,  is 
in  the  Talmud,  but  only  asked  me  with  a  smile,  "And 
do  the  Christians  execute  this  ?  Do  they  offer  the  other 
cheek  ?  " 

I  could  make  no  reply,  the  more  so,  since  I  knew  that 
just  at  that  time  the  Christians  not  only  failed  to  offer 
their  cheeks,  but  struck  the  Jews  on  the  cheeks  which 
they  turned  to  them.  Still  it  interested  me  to  know 
whether  there  was  anything  like  it  in  the  Bible  or  in  the 
Talmud,  and  I  asked  him  about  it. 

He  said,  No,  that  is  not  there,  but  tell  me,  Do  the 
Christians  keep  this  law  ?  With  this  question  he  told 
me  that  the  presence  of  such  a  rule  in  the  Christian  law, 
which  not  only  no  one  executes,  but  which  also  the 
Christians  consider  impracticable,  is  a  recognition  of 
the  irrationality  and  uselessness  of  this  rule.  And  I 
could  not  answer  him. 

Now  that  I  have  come  to  understand  the  direct  mean- 
ing of  the  teaching,  I  see  clearly  the  strange  self-contra- 
diction in  which  I  had  lived.  Since  I  recognized  Christ 
as  God  and  his  teaching  as  divine  and,  at  the  same  time, 
arranged  my  life  contrary  to  this  teaching,  what  was  there 
left  for  me  to  do  but  recognize  this  teaching  as  impracti- 
cable ?  In  words  I  recognized  Christ's  teaching  as  sacred, 
but  in  reality  I  did  not  at  all  confess  the  Christian  teach- 
ing, and  bowed  before  non-Christian  institutions,  which 
on  all  sides  embraced  my  life. 


20  MY    RELIGION 

The  whole  Old  Testament  says  that  the  misfortunes  of 
the  Jewish  people  were  due  to  their  believing  in  false 
gods,  and  not  in  the  true  God.  Samuel,  in  the  First  Book, 
Chapters  VIII.  and  XII.,  accuses  the  people  of  having,  to 
their  previous  transgressions  against  God,  added  a  new 
one :  in  the  place  of  God,  who  was  their  king,  they  placed 
a  man-king,  who,  in  their  opinion,  was  to  save  them.  Do 
not  believe  in  tliohu,  emptiness,  Samuel  says  to  the  people 
(xii.  12).  It  will  not  help  you,  and  will  not  save  you, 
for  it  is  thoh^c,  empty.  If  you  do  not  wish  to  perish  with 
your  king,  keep  the  one  God. 

Now  the  belief  in  this  tliohu,  in  these  empty  idols, 
veiled  the  truth  from  me.  On  the  way  toward  it,  barring 
its  light,  stood  before  me  those  thohu,  which  I  was  unable 
to  renounce. 

The  other  day  I  went  through  the  Borovitski  Gate ;  in 
it  sat  an  old  man,  a  lame  mendicant,  wrapped  to  his  ears 
in  a  dirty  rag.  I  took  out  my  purse,  to  give  him  some- 
thing. Just  then  a  young,  dapper,  red-cheeked  grenadier, 
in  a  Crown  fur  coat,  came  running  down  from  the  Krem- 
lin. When  the  mendicant  saw  the  grenadier,  he  jumped 
up  in  fright  and  ran  limping  toward  the  Alexander  Gar- 
den. The  grenadier  started  in  pursuit  after  him,  but 
stopped  before  reaching  him,  and  began  to  curse  the  men- 
dicant for  disobeying  the  order  not  to  sit  down  in  the 
gate.  I  waited  in  the  gate  for  the  grenadier  to  return. 
When  he  was  in  a  line  with  me,  I  asked  him  whether  he 
could  read. 

"  I  do,  what  of  it  ?  " 

"  Have  you  read  the  Gospel  ? " 

"  I  have." 

"  Have  you  read.  And  he  who  shall  feed  the  hungry  ? " 

I  quoted  the  passage  to  him.  He  knew  it,  and  listened 
to  it,  and  I  saw  that  he  was  troubled.  Two  passers-by 
stopped  to  listen.  It  was  evident  that  the  grenadier  was 
pained  to  feel  that  he,  who  excellently  executed  his  duty, 


MY    RELIGION  21 

which  was  to  drive  people  away  from  where  they  were 
uot  permitted  to  stay,  suddenly  appeared  unjust.  He  was 
coufused  and,  apparently,  was  trying  to  find  a  justification. 
Suddenly  a  light  gleamed  in  his  bright  black  eyes,  and  he 
turned  sidewise  toward  me,  as  though  ready  to  walk  away. 

"  Have  you  read  the  Military  Kegulation  ? "  he  asked. 

I  told  him  that  I  had  read  it. 

"  Then  don't  talk,"  said  the  grenadier,  with  a  victorious 
toss  of  his  head,  and,  wrapping  hiniself  in  the  fur  coat,  he 
went  dashingly  back  to  his  place. 

This  was  the  only  man  in  my  whole  life  who  in  a 
strictly  logical  way  solved  that  eternal  question,  which 
in  our  social  structure  had  stood  before  me  and  stands 
before  every  man  who  calls  himself  a  Christian. 


III. 

They  speak  in  vain  who  say  that  the  Christian  teaching 
touches  the  personal  salvation,  and  not  the  general  ques- 
tions of  state.  This  is  only  a  bold  and  barren  assertion 
of  a  most  palpable  untruth,  which  is  destroyed  at  the  first 
serious  thought  of  it.  Very  well,  I  will  not  resist  evil, 
will  offer  my  cheek  as  a  private  individual,  I  say  to  my- 
self, but  there  comes  an  enemy,  or  nations  are  oppressed, 
and  I  am  called  to  participate  in  the  struggle  with  the 
evil  men,  —  to  go  and  kill  them.  I  must  inevitably  solve 
the  question,  In  what  does  the  service  of  God  and  the  serv- 
ice of  thohu  consist  ?  Must  I  go  to  war,  or  not  go  to 
war  ?  I  am  a  peasant ;  I  am  chosen  an  elder,  a  juryman, 
and  am  compelled  to  swear,  to  judge,  to  punish,  —  what 
must  I  do  ?  Again  I  must  choose  between  the  law  of 
God  and  the  law  of  man.  I  am  a  monk,  who  Hves  in  the 
monastery,  and  the  peasants  have  taken  our  mowing 
away,  and  I  am  sent  out  to  take  part  in  the  struggle 
with  the  evil  men,  to  enter  a  complaint  in  the  court 
against  the  peasants.     Again  I  must  choose. 

Not  a  single  man  can  get  away  from  the  necessity 
for  a  solution  of  this  question.  I  am  not  speaking  of  our 
class  of  society,  almost  the  whole  of  whose  activity  con- 
sists in  resisting  the  evil,  being  warriors,  men  of  the  legal 
profession,  administrators ;  there  is  no  private  indi\ddual, 
no  matter  how  modest  he  may  be,  who  is  not  confronted 
with  this  necessity  for  a  solution  between  serving  God 
and  keeping  his  commandments,  and  serving  thohu,  the 
institutions  of  state.  My  personal  life  is  interwoven 
with  the   social,  political  life,  and  the  political  life  de- 

22 


MY    RELIGION  23 

mands  of  me  a  non-Christian  activity,  which  is  directly 
opposed  to  Christ's  coininaudment.  Now,  with  the  uni- 
versal military  service  and  the  participation  of  all  in  the 
court  in  the  capacity  of  jurymen,  this  dilemma  is  with 
striking  distinctness  placed  before  all  people.  Every  man 
has  to  take  up  the  weapon  of  murder,  the  gun,  the  kuife, 
and,  though  he  does  not  kill,  he  must  load  his  gun  and 
whet  his  knife,  that  is,  be  prepared  to  commit  murder. 
Every  citizen  must  come  to  court  and  be  a  participant  in 
the  court  and  in  the  punishments,  that  is,  every  man  has 
to  renounce  Christ's  commandment  of  non-resistance  to 
evil,  not  only  in  words,  but  in  action  as  well. 

The  grenadier's  question  —  the  Gospel  or  the  Mihtary 
Eegulation,  the  law  of  God,  and  the  law  of  men  —  is 
standing  now  before  humanity  as  it  did  in  the  time  of 
Samuel.  It  stood  also  before  Christ  and  before  his  dis- 
ciples. •  It  stands  before  those  who  want  to  be  Christians 
in  fact ;  it  stood  also  before  me. 

Christ's  law,  with  his  teaching  of  love,  humility,  self- 
renunciation,  had  always  before  touched  my  heart  and 
attracted  me.  But  on  all  sides,  in  history,  in  the  contem- 
porary life  which  surrounded  me,  in  my  own  life,  I  saw 
the  opposite  law,  which  was  contrary  to  my  heart,  my  con- 
science, my  reason,  which  pampered  my  animal  instincts. 
I  felt  that,  if  I  accepted  Christ's  law,  I  should  be  left 
alone,  and  I  might  fare  ill:  I  might  be  persecuted  and 
have  to  weep,  precisely  what  Christ  said  about  it.  If  I 
accepted  the  human  law,  all  would  approve  of  me,  and  I 
should  be  quiet  and  secure,  and  all  the  cunning  of  reason 
would  be  at  my  service,  pacifying  my  conscience.  I  would 
laugh  and  rejoice,  precisely  what  Christ  said  about  it.  I 
felt  this,  and  so  not  only  failed  to  penetrate  Christ's  law, 
but  tried  to  understand  it  in  such  a  way  that  it  should  not 
keep  me  from  living  my  animal  life.  But  it  was  not  pos- 
sible to  understand  it  thus,  and  I  did  not  understand  it  at 
all. 


24  MY    RELIGION 

In  this  lack  of  comprehension  I  now  reached  a  remark- 
able degree  of  blindness.  As  an  example  of  such  a  blind- 
ness I  will  adduce  my  former  comprehension  of  the  words, 
Judge  not,  that  ye  be  not  judged  (Matt.  vii.  1).  Judge 
not,  and  ye  shall  not  be  judged  ;  condemn  not,  and  ye  shall 
not  be  condemned  (Luke  vi.  37).  The  institution  of  the 
courts,  in  which  I  took  part,  and  which  protected  my 
property  and  made  me  secure,  seemed  so  unquestionably 
sacred  and  so  far  from  breaking  God's  law  that  it  never 
occurred  to  me  that  this  utterance  could  mean  anything 
but  that  one  should  not  judge  his  neighbour  in  words.  It 
did  not  occur  to  me  that  Christ  could  in  these  words  have 
spoken  of  courts,  of  the  provincial  court,  the  criminal 
court,  the  circuit  and  justice  of  the  peace  courts,  and  all 
kinds  of  senates  and  departments.  Only  when  I  compre- 
hended the  direct  meaning  of  the  words  about  non-resist- 
ance to  evil,  the  question  presented  itself  to  me  as  to  what 
Christ's  relations  were  to  all  these  courts  and  departments. 
When  I  saw  that  he  would  have  rejected  them,  I  asked 
myself.  Does  it  mean  only,  Do  not  judge  your  neighbour 
in  words  ?  Does  it  not  mean  also.  Do  not  sit  in  judgment, 
do  not  judge  your  neighbour  in  human  institutions  ? 

In  Luke,  Chapter  VL,  from  Verse  37  to  Verse  49,  these 
words  are  said  immediately  after  the  teaching  about  non- 
resistance  to  evil  and  repaying  evil  with  good.  Imme- 
diately after  the  words.  Be  ye  therefore  merciful,  as  your 
Father  also  is  merciful,  it  says.  Judge  not,  and  ye  shall 
not  be  judged.  Does  not  this  mean  that  not  only  is  one 
not  to  judge  his  neighbour,  but  also  not  to  establish  courts 
and  not  to  judge  his  neighbours  in  them  ?  I  asked  myself. 
And  I  need  only  to  put  this  question  to  myself,  in  order 
that  my  heart  and  common  sense  should  immediately 
answer  me  in  the  affirmative. 

I  know  that  the  comprehension  of  these  words  is  start- 
ling at  first.  It  startled  me  also.  To  siiow  how  far 
removed  I  was  from  the  proper  understanding,  I  will  con- 


MY    RELIGION  25 

fess  a  disgraceful  stupidity  :  after  I  had  become  a  believer 
and  read  the  Gospel  as  a  divine  book,  I,  upon  meeting 
prosecuting  attorneys  and  judges  of  my  acquaintance,  used 
to  say  to  them  in  a  playful  way,  And  so  you  still  continue 
to  judge,  thougli  it  says,  Judge  not,  that  ye  be  not  judged  ! 
I  was  so  sure  that  these  words  could  not  mean  anything 
but  a  prohibition  of  gossip,  that  I  did  not  understand  that 
terrible  blasphemy  which  I  was  uttering  in  saying  those 
words.  I  had  reached  such  a  point  that,  having  convinced 
myself  that  these  clear  words  did  not  mean  what  they 
meant,  I  playfully  used  them  in  their  real  meaning. 

I  will  tell  in  detail  how  there  was  destroyed  in  me 
every  doubt  as  to  this,  that  the  words  could  not  be  under- 
stood in  any  other  sense  than  that  Christ  forbids  all  human 
institutions  of  courts,  and  could  not  say  anything  else  with 
these  words. 

The  first  thing  that  startled  me,  when  I  came  to  under- 
stand the  commandment  about  non-resistance  to  evil  in  its 
direct  sense,  was  that  the  human  courts  not  only  failed  to 
agree  with  it,  but  were  positively  opposed  to  it,  and  opposed 
to  the  meaning  of  the  whole  teaching,  and  that,  therefore, 
Christ  must  have  rejected  the  courts,  if  he  thought  of 
them. 

Christ  says,  Do  not  resist  evil.  The  purpose  of  the 
courts  is  to  resist  evil.  Christ  prescribes  doing  good 
in  return  for  evil.  The  courts  retaliate  evil  with  evil, 
Christ  says,  Make  no  distinction  between  the  good  and  the 
bad.  All  the  courts  do  is  to  make  this  distinction.  Christ 
says,  Forgive  all  men  ;  forgive,  not  once,  not  seven  times, 
but  without  end  ;  love  your  enemies,  do  good  to  those  who 
hate  you.  The  courts  do  not  forgive,  but  punish  ;  they  do 
not  do  good,  but  evil,  to  those  whom  they  call  enemies 
of  society.  Thus  it  turns  out,  according  to  the  meaning, 
that  Christ  must  have  rejected  the  courts. 

But,  I  thought,  maybe  Christ  had  nothing  to  do  with 
human  courts  and  did  not  think  of  them.     But  I  see  that 


2^0  MY    RELIGION 

that  cannot  be  assumed :  From  his  very  birth  until  his 
death,  Jesus  came  in  contact  with  the  courts  of  Herod,  of 
the  sanhedrim,  and  of  the  high  priests.  And,  indeed,  I 
see  that  Christ  frequently  speaks  directly  of  courts  as  of 
an  evil.  He  says  to  his  disciples  that  they  will  be  judged, 
and  tells  them  how  they  must  bear  themselves  in  court. 
Of  himself  he  says  that  he  will  be  condemned,  and  he 
shows  how  we  must  act  toward  a  human  court. 

Consequently,  Christ  thought  of  those  human  courts 
which  were  to  condemn  him  and  his  disciples,  and  which 
have  condemned  millions  of  people.  Christ  saw  this  evil 
and  directly  pointed  to  it.  In  passing  judgment  on  the 
harlot,  he  denies  the  court  outright,  and  shows  that  a  man 
cannot  condemn,  because  he  is  himself  guilty.  The  same 
idea  he  expresses  several  times,  saying  that  with  a  dust- 
filled  eye  it  is  impossible  to  see  the  dust  in  another  man's 
eye,  that  a  blind  man  cannot  guide  the  blind.  He  even 
explains  what  follows  from  such  a  delusion.  The  pupil 
will  be  like  the  teacher. 

But,  perhaps,  having  expressed  this  in  respect  to  the 
condemnation  of  the  harlot,  and  having  pointed  out  the 
common  human  weakness  in  the  parable  of  the  mote,  he, 
none  the  less,  does  not  forbid  turning  to  human  justice  in 
order  to  find  defence  against  evil  men  ;  but  I  see  that  this 
can  in  no  way  be  conceded. 

In  the  sermon  on  the  mount  he  turns  to  all  men  and 
says,  And  if  a  man  wants  to  take  away  thy  coat  by  suing 
thee  at  law,  give  him  thy  cloak  also.  Consequently,  he 
forbids  all  to  go  to  law. 

But,  perhaps,  Christ  is  speaking  only  of  the  personal 
relation  of  each  man  to  the  courts,  and  does  not  deny  the 
courts  of  justice  themselves,  and  in  Christian  society  rec- 
ognizes men  who  judge  others  in  established  institutions  ? 
But  I  see  that  this,  too,  cannot  be  conceded.  Christ  com- 
mands in  his  prayer  all  people  without  exception  to  forgive 
others,  that   their  guilt  be  also  forgiven    them,   and  he 


MY   RELIGION  27 

repeats  this  thouglit  several  times.  Consequently,  every 
man  must  forgive  all,  both  in  his  prayer  and  before  he 
offers  a  gift.  How,  then,  can  a  man  judge  and  sentence 
in  court,  since,  according  to  the  faith  which  he  professes, 
he  must  always  forgive  ?  And  so  I  see  that,  according  to 
Christ's  teaching,  there  cannot  be  such  a  person  as  a 
Christian  judge,  who  punishes  men. 

But,  perhaps,  from  the  connection  in  which  the  words 
stand  with  other  words.  Judge  not  and  condemn  not, 
Christ,  speaking  here,  Judge  not,  did  not  have  in  mind 
human  courts  ?  But  that  is  not  true,  either ;  on  the  con- 
trary, it  is  evident  from  the  context  that,  saying.  Judge 
not,  Christ  is  speaking  of  courts  as  institutions ;  according 
to  Matthew  and  Luke,  he  precedes  the  words.  Judge  not, 
by.  Do  not  resist  evil,  suffer  evil,  do  good  to  all  men.  And 
before  this  he,  according  to  Matthew,  repeats  the  words  of 
the  Jewish  criminal  law,  An  eye  for  an  eye,  a  tooth  for  a 
tooth.  And  after  this  reference  to  the  criminal  law,  he 
says.  But  do  not  do  so,  do  not  resist  evil,  and  then  only, 
he  says.  Do  not  judge.  Consequently  Christ  is  speaking 
of  the  criminal  law  of  men,  and  rejects  it  with  the  words. 
Do  not  judge. 

Besides,  according  to  Luke,  he  not  only  says,  Do  not 
judge,  but.  Do  not  judge  and  do  not  condemn.  There 
must  be  some  reason  why  this  word,  which  has  nearly  the 
same  meaning,  is  added.  The  addition  of  this  word  can 
have  but  one  aim :  the  explanation  of  the  meaning  in 
which  this  first  word  is  to  be  taken. 

If  he  wanted  to  say,  Do  not  condemn  your  neighbour, 
he  would  have  added  this  word ;  but  he  adds  a  word, 
which  means,  Do  not  sentence.  And  then  he  says.  And 
you  will  not  be  sentenced ;  forgive  all,  and  you  will  be 
forgiven. 

But,  perhaps,  Christ  was  still  not  thinking  of  the  courts, 
when  he  said  this,  and  I  put  my  own  thought  into  his 
words,  which  have  a  different  significance. 


28  MY   RELIGION 

I  look  to  find  out  how  the  first  disciples  of  Christ,  the 
apostles,  considered  the  human  courts,  and  whether  they 
recognized  and  approved  them.  In  Chapter  IV.,  Verses 
1-11,  Apostle  James  says,  Speak  not  evil  one  of  another, 
brethren.  He  that  speaketh  evil  of  his  brother,  and  judg- 
eth  his  brother,  speaketh  evil  of  the  law,  and  judgeth  the 
law :  but  if  thou  judge  the  law,  thou  art  not  a  doer  of 
the  law,  but  a  judge.  There  is  one  lawgiver,  who  is  able 
to  save  and  to  destroy :  who  art  thou  that  judgest 
another  ? 

The  word  which  is  rendered  by  speak  evil  is  KaraXoKea. 
Even  without  referring  to  the  dictionary,  we  can  see  that 
it  must  mean  to  accuse :  and  this  it  does  mean,  which  any 
one  may  verify  by  looking  into  the  dictionary.  It  is  trans- 
lated, He  that  speaketh  evil  of  his  brother,  speaketh  evil 
of  the  law.  Involuntarily  the  question  arises.  Why  ?  No 
matter  how  much  evil  I  may  speak  of  my  brother,  I  do 
not  speak  evil  of  the  law ;  but  if  I  accuse  and  judge  my 
brother  in  court,  it  is  evident  that  I  thus  accuse  Christ's 
law,  that  is,  I  consider  Christ's  law  insufficient,  and  accuse 
and  judge  the  law.  Then  it  is  clear  that  I  no  longer  exe- 
cute his  law,  but  am  myself  a  judge.  But  a  judge,  says 
Christ,  is  he  who  can  save.  How,  then,  can  I  be  a  judge, 
and  punish,  since  I  am  not  able  to  save  ? 

This  whole  passage  speaks  of  the  human  court,  and 
denies  it.  The  whole  epistle  is  permeated  by  the  same 
idea.     In  the  same  epistle  (ii.  1-13),  it  says: 

1.  My  brethren,  have  not  the  faith  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  the  Lord  of  glory,  with  respect  of  persons. 

2.  For  if  there  come  unto  your  assembly  a  man  with 
a  gold  ring,  in  goodly  apparel,  and  there  come  in  also  a 
poor  man  in  vile  raiment ; 

3.  And  ye  have  respect  to  him  that  weareth  the  gay 
clothing,  and  say  unto  him.  Sit  thou  here  in  a  good  place  ; 
and  say  to  the  poor,  Stand  thou  there,  or  sit  here  under 
my  footstool: 


MY    RELIGION  29 

4.  Are  ye  not  then  partial  in  yourselves,  and  are  become 
judges  of  evil  thoughts  ? 

5.  Hearken,  my  beloved  brethren,  Hath  not  God  chosen 
the  poor  of  this  world  rich  in  faith,  and  heirs  of  the  king- 
dom which  he  hath  promised  to  them  that  love  him  ? 

6.  But  ye  have  despised  the  poor.  Do  not  rich  men 
oppress  you,  and  draw  you  before  the  judgment  seats  ? 

7.  Do  not  they  blaspheme  that  worthy  name  by  the 
which  ye  are  called  ? 

8.  If  ye  fulfil  the  royal  law  according  to  the  Scripture, 
Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself  (Lev.  xix.  18),  ye 
do  well : 

9.  But  if  ye  have  respect  to  persons,  ye  commit  sin, 
and  are  convinced  of  the  law  as  transgressors. 

10.  For  whosoever  shall  keep  the  whole  law,  and  yet 
offend  in  one  point,  he  is  guilty  of  all. 

11.  For  he  that  said,  Do  not  commit  adultery,  said  also, 
Do  not  kill.  Now  if  thou  commit  no  adultery,  yet  if  thou 
kill,  thou  art  become  a  transgressor  of  the  law.  (Deut. 
xxii.  22 ;  Lev.  xviii.  17-25.) 

12.  So  speak  ye,  and  so  do,  as  they  that  shall  be  judged 
by  the  law  of  liberty. 

13.  For  he  shall  have  judgment  without  mercy,  that 
hath  shewed  no  mercy ;  and  mercy  rejoiceth  against  judg- 
ment. 

The  last  words  have  frequently  been  translated  by, 
Mercy  is  proclaimed  at  the  judgment,  so  as  to  mean 
that  there  can  be  a  Christian  court,  but  that  it  must  be 
merciful. 

James  admonishes  the  brethren  not  to  make  any  dis- 
tinction between  men.  If  you  do  make  a  distinction, 
you  hieKpiOrjTe  you  are  partial,  as  judges  with  evil 
thoughts  are  in  the  court.  You  have  decided  that  the 
poor  man  is  worse,  whereas,  in  reality,  the  rich  man  is 
worse.  He  oppresses  you  and  drags  you  to  court.  If  you 
live  according  to   the  law  of   love    for  your  neighbour, 


30  MY    EELIGION" 

according  to  the  law  of  mercy  (which,  in  distinction  from 
the  other,  James  calls  royal),  it  is  well.  But  if  you  re- 
spect persons,  make  distinctions  among  men,  you  become 
transgressors  of  the  law  of  mercy.  And,  having  in  view, 
no  doubt,  the  example  of  the  harlot,  who  was  brought 
before  Christ,  in  order  that  she  might  be  stoned  to  death 
according  to  the  law,  or  in  general  the  crime  of  adultery, 
James  says  that  he  who  puts  to  death  the  harlot  will  be 
guilty  of  murder,  and  will  break  the  eternal  law,  for  the 
same  eternal  law  forbids  both  fornication  and  murder. 
He  says.  Do  as  they  that  shall  be  judged  by  the  law  of 
hberty,  for  there  will  be  no  mercy  to  him  who  is  without 
mercy,  and  so  mercy  destroys  the  court. 

How  could  this  be  said  more  clearly  and  more  defi- 
nitely ?  Every  distinction  between  men,  every  judgment 
as  to  this  man  being  good,  and  that  one  bad,  is  prohibited  ; 
the  human  court  is  pointed  out  as  being  unquestionably 
bad,  and  it  is  shown  that  this  judgment  is  criminal,  in 
that  it  puts  to  death  for  crimes,  and  that,  therefore,  the 
courts  are  naturally  destroyed  by  God's  law,  —  by 
mercy. 

I  read  the  epistles  of  Apostle  Paul,  who  suffered  from 
the  courts,  and  in  the  very  first  chapter  of  his  epistle 
to  the  Eomans  I  read  an  admonition,  which  the  apostle 
makes  to  the  Eomans  for  all  their  vices  and  delusions, 
and  among  these  for  their  courts : 

1.  32.  Who,  knowing  the  judgment  of  God,  that  they 
which  commit  such  things  are  worthy  of  death,  not  only 
do  the  same,  but  have  pleasure  in  them  that  do  them. 

II.  1.  Therefore  thou  art  inexcusable,  0  man,  whosoever 
thou  art  that  judgest :  for  wherein  thou  judgest  another, 
thou  condemnest  thyself ;  for  thou  that  judgest  doest  the 
same  things. 

2.  But  we  are  sure  that  the  judgment  of  God  is  accord- 
ing to  truth  against  them  w^hich  commit  such  things. 

3.  And  thinkest  thou  this,  0  man,  that  judgest  them 


MY   RELIGION  31 

which  do  such  things,  and  doest  the  same,  that  thou  shalt 
escape  the  judgment  of  God  ? 

4.  Or  despisest  thou  the  riches  of  his  goodness  and 
forbearance  and  longsuffering ;  not  knowing  that  the 
goodness  of  God  leadeth  thee  to  repentance  ? 

Apostle  Paul  says,  Knowing  the  righteous  judgment  of 
God,  they  themselves  act  unrighteously  and  teach  others 
to  do  likewise,  and  so  a  man  who  judges  cannot  be  justi- 
fied. 

Such  a  relation  to  the  courts  I  find  in  the  epistles  of 
the  apostles ;  but  in  their  lives,  as  we  all  know,  the  human 
courts  appeared  to  them  as  an  evil  and  offence,  which  it 
was  necessary  to  bear  with  firmness  and  with  devotion  to 
the  will  of  God. 

If  we  reconstruct  in  our  imagination  the  condition  of 
the  first  Christians  amidst  the  Gentiles,  we  shall  easily 
understand  that  it  could  not  have  occurred  to  the  Chris- 
tians, who  were  persecuted  by  human  courts,  to  forbid  the 
courts.  Only  occasionally  they  could  touch  on  this  evil, 
denying  its  foundations,  even  as  they  did. 

I  consult  the  teachers  of  the  church  of  the  first  centu- 
ries, and  I  see  that  they  always  defined  their  doctrine,  as 
distinguishing  them  from  all  the  others,  by  saying  that 
they  never  compel  others  or  judge  any  one  (Athenagoras, 
Origen),  nor  put  to  death,  but  only  endure  the  torments 
which  are  imposed  upon  them  by  human  courts.  All  the 
martyrs  attested  the  same  by  their  acts.  I  see  that  all 
Christianity,  up  to  Constantino,  never  looked  differently 
at  the  courts  than  as  at  an  evil  which  one  must  patiently 
endure,  and  that  it  never  could  have  occurred  to  a  single 
Christian  of  that  time  that  a  Christian  could  take  part  in 
a  judgment. 

I  see  that  Christ's  words.  Do  not  judge,  and  do  not 
condemn,  were  understood  by  his  first  disciples  just  as  I 
have  come  to  understand  them,  in  their  direct  sense.  Do 
not  judge  in  courts,  and  do  not  take  part  in  them. 


32  MY    RELIGION 

V 

Everything  incontestably  confirmed  my  conviction  that 
the  words,  Do  not  judge,  and  do  not  condemn,  meant.  Do 
not  judge  in  courts ;  but  the  interpretation  that  it  means, 
Do  not  calumniate  thy  neighbour,  is  so  universally  ac- 
cepted, and  the  courts  flourish  so  boldly  and  so  arrogantly 
in  all  Christian  countries,  basing  themselves  even  on  the 
church,  that  I  for  a  long  time  doubted  the  justice  of  my 
comprehension.  If  all  men  could  interpret  in  such  a  way 
and  have  estabhshed  Christian  courts,  they,  no  doubt, 
must  have  had  some  foundation  for  them,  and  there  is 
something  about  it  which  you  do  not  understand,  I  said 
to  myself.  There  must  be  some  grounds  on  which 
these  words  are  meant  to  mean  calumny,  and  there 
must  be  grounds  on  which  Christian  courts  are  estab- 
lished. 

I  turned  to  the  interpretations  of  the  church.  In  all 
these  commentaries,  beginning  with  the  fifth  century,  I 
found  that  these  words  were  usually  understood  to  mean 
a  verbal  condemnation  of  one's  neighbour,  that  is, 
calumny.  And  since  these  words  are  accepted  to  mean 
a  verbal  condemnation  of  one's  neighbour,  there  arises  a 
difficulty  :  how  can  we  help  condemning  ?  The  evil  can- 
not help  but  be  condemned.  And  so  all  the  interpreta- 
tions turn  about  what  one  may  condemn,  and  what  not. 
They  say  that  for  the  servants  of  the  church  that  cannot 
be  taken  as  a  prohibition  against  judging,  and  that  the 
apostles  themselves  judged  (Chrysostom  and  Theophi- 
lactes).  They  say  that,  in  all  probability,  Christ  by  these 
words  points  to  the  Jews,  who  accuse  their  neighbours  of 
small  sins,  and  themselves  commit  great  sins.  But 
nowhere  is  there  a  word  said  about  the  human  institu- 
tions, the  courts,  about  the  relation  that  these  courts  bear 
to  the  prohibition  against  condemning.  Does  Christ  for- 
bid them,  or  does  he  permit  them  ? 

To  this  natural  question  there  is  no  answer,  as  though 
it  were  too  obvious  that  the  moment  a  Christian  sits  down 


MY    RELIGION  33 

in  the  judgment-seat,  he  can  not  only  condemn  his  neigh- 
bour, but  also  put  him  to  death. 

I  consult  the  Greek,  Catholic,  and  Protestant  writers 
and  the  writers  of  the  Tubingen  school  and  of  the  histor- 
ical school.  By  all  these,  even  the  most  freethiuking 
interpreters,  the  words  are  understood  as  a  prohibition 
against  calumniating.  But  why  these  words,  contrary  to 
the  whole  teaching  of  Christ,  are  understood  in  such  a 
narrow  sense  that  into  the  prohibition  against  judging 
there  does  not  enter  the  prohibition  against  keeping  court ; 
why  it  is  assumed  that  Christ,  in  prohibiting  the  condem- 
nation of  one's  neighbour  which,  as  a  bad  deed,  acciden- 
tally escapes  one's  mouth,  does  not  consider  bad  the  same 
kind  of  a  condemnation  which  is  pronounced  consciously 
and  is  combined  with  the  exertion  of  violence  over  the 
condemned  person,  —  to  this  there  is  no  answer ;  and 
there  is  not  even  the  slightest  hint  as  to  the  possibility  of 
understanding  by  condemnation  what  takes  place  in 
courts  and  causes  millions  to  suffer.  More  than  that: 
on  the  occasion  of  the  words,  Do  not  judge  and  do  not 
condemn,  this  same  cruel  method  of  legal  condemnation 
is  cautiously  obviated  and  even  fenced  off.  The  theo- 
logical commentators  mention  that  courts  must  exist  in 
Christian  countries,  and  that  they  are  not  contrary  to 
Christ's  law. 

When  I  noticed  this,  I  doubted  the  sincerity  of  these 
interpretations,  and  turned  to  the  translation  of  the  words, 
Judge  and  condemn,  —  to  that  which  I  ought  to  have 
turned  to  in  the  start. 

In  the  original  these  words  are  Kpivco  and  KaraSiKd^o). 
The  incorrect  translation  of  the  word  KaTaStKci^o)  in 
James's  epistle,  which  is  translated  by  the  word  calum- 
niate, confirmed  my  doubt  in  the  correctness  of  the  trans- 
lation. 

I  investigate  how  the  words  Kpivoa  and  KaraScKci^co  are 
translated  in  the  gospels  in  the  diflerent  languages,  and  I 


34  MY   RELIGION 

find  that  in  the  Vulgate  the  last  is  translated  by  condam- 
nare,  and  similarly  in  French ;  in  Slavic  it  is  osuzhdat' ; 
in  'Lwih^v,  verdammen,  to  curse. 

The  variability  of  these  translations  increases  my 
doubts,  and  I  ask  myself,  What  do  the  Greek  word  Kplvw, 
which  is  used  in  both  the 'gospels,  and  the  word  Karahi- 
Ka^co,  which  is  used  in  Luke,  mean,  and  what  can  they 
mean,  especially  in  the  case  of  Luke,  an  evangelist  who, 
in  the  opinion  of  scholars,  wrote  in  fairly  good  Greek  ? 
How  would  a  man  translate  these  words,  if  he  kuew 
nothing  of  the  gospel  teaching  and  its  interpretations,  and 
had  before  him  this  one  utterance  ? 

I  consult  the  general  dictionary,  and  I  find  that  Kpivco 
has  many  different  meanings,  and  amoug  them  the  very 
usual  significance,  to  ijass  sentence,  even  to  piit  to  death, 
but  never  to  calumniate.  I  consult  the  dictionary  of  the 
New  Testament,  and  I  find  that  in  the  New  Testament  it 
is  frequently  used  in  the  sense  of  to  put  aside,  but  never 
as  to  cahcmniate.  And  so  I  see  that  the  word  Kpivco  may 
be  differently  translated,  but  that  a  translation  which 
would  give  it  the  meaning  of  to  calumniate  is  most  far- 
fetched and  unexpected.       * 

I  investigate  the  word  KaraStKa^o},  which  is  attached 
to  the  word  Kpivco,  which  has  many  meanings,  apparently 
in  order  to  define  the  special  meaning  which  the  author 
had  in  view  with  the  first  word.  I  look  up  the  word 
KaraBiKci^co  in  the  general  dictionary,  and  I  find  that  this 
word  never  has  any  other  meaning  than  to  condemn  at  a 
trial  to  punishments,  to  sentence.  I  consult  the  diction- 
ary of  the  New  Testament,  and  I  find  that  this  word  is 
used  in  the  epistle  of  James,  v.  6,  where  it  says,  Ye  have 
condemned  and  killed  the  just.  The  word  condemned, 
the  same  KaraSiKci^co,  is  used  in  relation  to  Christ,  who  is 
condemned  to  death.  In  no  other  sense  is  this  word  ever 
used  in  the  whole  New  Testament,  or  in  any  Greek  lan- 
guage. 


MY    RELIGION  35 

What  is  this  ?  Have  I  grown  so  stupid  ?  I,  and  every 
one  of  us,  who  lives  in  our  society,  if  he  has  at  all 
thought  of  the  fate  of  men,  has  been  terrified  before  the 
sufferings  and  before  the  evil  which  the  criminal  laws  of 
men  have  introduced  into  life,  —  an  evil  both  for  the 
judged  and  for  the  judges,  —  from  the  executions  of 
Dzhingis-Khan  and  of  the  Eevolution  to  the  executions 
of  our  own  day. 

No  man  with  a  heart  has  escaped  that  impression  of 
terror  and  of  doubt  in  the  good,  even  at  the  recital,  not  to 
speak  of  the  sight,  of  the  executions  of  men  by  just  such 
men,  by  means  of  rods,  the  guillotine,  the  gaUows. 

In  the  Gospel,  eafch  word  of  which  we  consider  sacred, 
it  says  clearly  and  outright.  You  had  a  criminal  code  —  a 
tooth  for  a  tooth  —  and  I  give  you  a  new  one :  do  not 
resist  evil ;  you  must  all  keep  this  commandment,  Do  not 
return  evil  for  evil,  but  always  do  good  to  all  men, — 
forgive  all  men. 

And  further,  it  says.  Do  not  judge.  And,  that  no 
doubt  be  left  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  words  which  were 
said,  it  adds,  Do  not  condemn  by  trial  to  punishments. 

My  heart  says  clearly  and  distinctly,  Do  not  put  to 
death ;  science  says.  Do  not  put  to  death ;  the  more  you 
put  to  death,  the  more  evil  there  is ;  reason  says.  Do  not 
put  to  death ;  you  cannot  stop  an  evil  with  an  evil.  The 
Word  of  God,  in  which  I  believe,  says  the  same.  And  I, 
reading  all  the  teaching,  reading  the  words.  Judge  not, 
and  ye  shall  not  be  judged ;  condemn  not,  and  ye  shall 
not  be  condemned ;  forgive,  and  ye  shall  be  forgiven, 
acknowledge  that  these  are  the  words  of  God,  and  say 
that  what  they  mean  is  that  we  must  not  busy  ourselves 
with  gossiping  and  calumniating,  and  must  continue  to 
regard  the  courts  as  a  Christian  institution,  and  me  as  a 
judge  and  Christian. 

I  was  horrified  at  the  grossness  of  the  deception  in 
which  I  had  been  living. 


IV. 

I  NOW  understood  what  Christ  meant  when  he  said, 
You  were  told  an  eye  for  an  eye,  a  tooth  for  a  tooth ; 
and  I  tell  you,  Do  not  resist  evil,  and  endure  it.  Christ 
says,  You  have  been  impressed  with  the  idea,  and  you 
have  become  accustomed  to  it,  that  it  is  good  and  rational 
by  force  to  repel  the  evil  and  to  pluck  an  eye  out  for  an 
eye,  to  establish  criminal  courts,  the  police,  the  army,  to 
resist  the  enemy :  but  I  say,  Use  no  violence,  do  not  take 
part  in  violence,  do  no  evil  to  any  one,  even  to  those 
whom  you  call  your  enemies. 

I  now  understood  not  only  that  in  the  proposition 
about  non-resistance  to  evil  Christ  was  telUng  what  would 
immediately  result  for  each  man  from  non-resistance 
to  evil,  but  that  —  in  contradistinction  to  the  principle 
by  which  humanity  lived  in  his  day  according  to  Moses 
and  the  Roman  law,  and  now  lives  according  to  all  kinds 
of  codes  — he  put  the  proposition  of  non-resistance  to 
evil  in  such  a  way  that,  according  to  his  teaching,  it 
was  to  be  the  foundation  of  the  joint  life  of  men  and  was 
to  free  humanity  from  the  evil  which  it  inflicted  upon 
itself.  He  says.  You  think  that  your  laws  mend  the  evil, 
but  they  only  increase  it.  There  is  one  way  of  cutting  off 
evil,  and  that  is,  to  do  good  for  evil  to  all  without  any 
distinction.  You  have  tried  your  principle  for  a  thousand 
years,  try  now  the  reverse. 

Here  is  a  remarkable  thing.     Of  late  I  have  frequently 

had  occasion  to  speak  with  a  large  variety  of  men  about 

this    law    of    Christ    concerning    non-resistance    to    evil. 

Though  rarely,  I  have  now  and  then  met  people  who 

36 


MY    RELIGION  37 

agreed  with  me :  but  there  are  two  classes  of  men  who 
never,  not  even  in  principle,  admit  the  direct  comprehen- 
sion of  this  law  and  who  warmly  defend  the  justice  of 
resistance  to  evil.  These  men  belong  to  the  two  extreme 
poles :  they  are  the  patriotic  and  conservative  Christians, 
who  acknowledge  that  their  church  is  the  true  one,  and 
the  atheistic  Revolutionists.  Neither  the  one  nor  the 
other  will  renounce  the  right  of  forcibly  resisting  what 
they  regard  as  an  evil.  Not  even  the  wisest  and  most 
learned  among  them  want  to  see  the  simple,  obvious  truth 
that,  if  we  concede  to  one  man  the  right  forcibly  to  resist 
what  he  considers  an  evil,  a  second  person  may  with  the 
same  right  resist  what  he  regards  as  an  evil. 

Lately  I  had  in  my  hands  an  instructive  correspond- 
ence of  an  Orthodox  Slavophile  with  a  Christian  Eevolu- 
tionist.  One  of  them  defended  the  violence  of  war  in 
the  name  of  the  oppressed  Slavic  brothers,  and  the  other 
defended  the  revolutions  in  the  name  of  his  oppressed 
brothers,  the  Russian  peasants.  Both  demand  violence, 
and  both  fall  back  on  Christ's  teacliing. 

They  all  understand  Christ's  teaching  in  the  most 
varied  manner  possible,  only  not  in  the  direct,  simple 
sense  which  inevitably  flows  from  his  words. 

We  have  established  all  our  life  on  the  very  founda- 
tions which  he  denies,  do  not  wish  to  understand  his 
teaching  in  its  simple  and  direct  sense,  and  assure  our- 
selves and  others,  either  that  we  profess  his  teaching,  or 
that  his  teaching  is  not  good  for  us.  The  so-called 
believers  believe  that  Christ  is  God,  the  second  person  of 
the  Trinity,  who  came  down  upon  earth  in  order  to  give 
men  an  example  of  hfe,  and  they  do  the  most  compli- 
cated things,  which  are  necessary  for  the  performance  of 
the  sacraments,  the  building  of  churches,  the  despatch 
of  missionaries,  the  establishment  of  pastors,  the  govern- 
ment of  the  congregation,  the  confession  of  faith,  but 
forget  one  small    circumstance,  —  to  do    what   he  said. 


38  ^  MY    KELIGION 

The  unbelievers  try  to  arrange  their  life  in  every  manner 
possible,  except  by  Christ's  law,  having  decided  in  ad- 
vance that  this  law  is  not  good  for  them.  No  one  wants 
to  endeavour  to  do  what  he  says  but,  moreover,  before 
attempting  to  do  so,  both  believers  and  unbelievers  decide 
in  advance  that  this  is  impossible. 

He  says  simply  and  clearly,  The  law  of  resisting  evil 
with  violence,  which  you  have  put  at  the  basis  of  your 
life,  is  false  and  unnatural ;  and  he  gives  us  another  basis, 
that  of  non-resistance,  which  alone  according  to  his  teach- 
ing, can  free  humanity  from  evil.  He  says.  You  think 
that  your  laws  of  violence  mend  the  evil ;  but  they  only 
increase  it.  You  have  tried  for  thousands  of  years  to 
destroy  evil  by  evil,  and  you  have  not  destroyed  it,  but 
have  only  increased  it.  Do  what  I  tell  you  and  what  I 
do,  and  you  will  see  whether  it  is  true. 

And  he  not  only  speaks  of  this,  but  in  his  whole  life 
and  in  his  death  executes  his  teaching  about  non-resistance 
to  evil. 

The  believers  hear  all  this  and  read  it  in  the  churches, 
calHng  it  divine  words,  and  call  him  God,  but  they 
say.  All  this  is  very  nice,  but  it  is  impossible  with  our 
social  structure,  —  it  disorganizes  our  whole  life,  whereas 
we  are  used  to  our  life  and  love  it.  And  so  we  believe 
in  all  this  in  the  sense  of  its  being  an  ideal  toward  which 
humanity  must  strive,  an  ideal  which  is  attained  by  prayer 
and  faith  in  the  sacraments,  in  the  redemption,  and  in  the 
resurrection  from  the  dead. 

But  the  others,  the  unbelievers,  the  free  interpreters  of 
Christ's  teaching,  the  historians  of  the  religions,  Strauss, 
Renan,  and  others,  who  have  adopted  in  full  the  church 
interpretation  as  to  Christ's  teaching  not  having  any  direct 
applicability  to  life,  and  being  only  a  visionary  teaching 
which  consoles  half-witted  people,  say  in  a  most  serious 
manner  that  Christ's  teaching  was  good  enough  to  be 
preached  to  the  savage  inhabitants  of  the  backwoods  of 


MY   RELIGION"  39 

Galilee,  but  that  to  iis,  with  our  culture,  it  presents  itself 
only  as  a  sweet  dream  "  du  charmant  docteur,"  as  Kenan 
says.  According  to  their  opinion,  Christ  could  not  rise  to 
the  height  of  comprehending  the  whole  wisdom  of  our 
civilization  and  culture.  If  he  had  stood  on  the  same 
height  of  education,  on  which  these  learned  men  stand,  he 
would  not  have  mentioned  such  sweet  trifles,  as  the  birds 
of  heaven,  the  turning  of  the  other  cheek,  and  the  care  for 
the  present  day  alone. 

These  learned  historians  judge  of  Christianity  from  the 
Christianity  which  they  see  in  our  society ;  but  according 
to  the  Christianity  of  our  society  and  time,  our  life  with 
all  its  arrangement  is  regarded  as  true  and  holy,  —  with 
its  prisons,  solitary  confinement,  Alcazars,  factories,  peri- 
odicals, brothels,  and  parliaments,  and  only  so  much  is 
taken  out  of  Christ's  teaching  as  does  not  interfere  with 
this  life.  And  since  Christ's  teaching  rejects  this  whole 
life,  nothing  is  taken  out  of  Christ's  teaching  but  words. 
The  learned  historians  see  this,  and,  as  they  have  no  need 
of  concealing  it,  as  the  so-called  believers  do,  subject  tliis 
teaching  of  Christ,  after  it  is  bereft  of  its  meaning,  to  a 
profound  criticism,  and  reject  it  in  its  entirety,  and  prove 
that  there  never  was  anytliing  in  Christianity  but  visionary 
ideas. 

One  would  think  that,  before  passing  judgment  on 
Christ's  teaching,  it  would  be  necessary  to  understand 
wherein  this  teaching  consists ;  and,  in  order  to  decide 
whether  this  teaching  is  sensible  or  not,  that  it  would 
be  necessary,  above  all,  to  ascertain  that  he  said  what  he 
said ;  but  this  we,  neither  the  clerical,  nor  the  freethink- 
ing  interpreters,  have  done,  and  we  know  why  we  have 
not  done  it. 

We  know  very  well  that  Christ's  teaching,  rejecting 
them,  has  always  embraced  those  human  delusions,  those 
thohus,  empty  idols,  which  we,  calling  them  the  church, 
the  state,  civilization,  science,  art,   culture,  imagine  we 


40  MY   RELIGION 

can  segregate  from  the  series  of  delusions ;  but  Christ 
speaks  against  them,  without  segregating  any  tholius. 

Not  only  Christ,  but  all  the  Jewish  prophets,  John  the 
Baptist,  all  the  true  sages  of  the  world,  speak  of  precisely 
this  church,  this  state,  this  culture,  this  civilization,  call- 
ing them  evil  and  destruction  of  men. 

Let  us  say  a  builder  says  to  a  householder.  Your  house 
is  bad,  it  has  to  be  rebuilt ;  and  then  he  will  proceed  to 
explain  in  detail  what  beams  are  needed,  how  they  are 
to  be  cut,  and  where  to  be  placed.  The  householder  will 
overhear  the  statement  that  the  house  is  bad  and  needs 
to  be  rebuilt,  and  will  with  feigned  respect  listen  to  the 
builder's  words  about  the  further  arrangement  and  distri- 
bution of  the  house.  Apparently  all  the  counsels  of  the 
builder  will  seem  inapplicable,  and  he  who  pays  no  atten- 
tion to  the  builder  will  simply  call  them  foolish.  Precisely 
tlie  same  takes  place  in  regard  to  Christ's  teaching. 

Being  unable  to  find  a  better  comparison,  I  used  this 
one ;  and  I  recalled  that  Christ,  in  imparting  his  teacliiug, 
made  use  of  this  very  comparison.  He  said,  I  will  destroy 
your  temple,  and  in  three  days  will  I  build  up  a  new  one. 
And  for  this  he  was  crucified ;  and  for  the  same  thing 
they  now  crucify  his  teaching.  • 

The  least  that  can  be  demanded  of  men  who  are  judg- 
ing of  a  person's  teachings  is  that  they  should  judge  of 
the  teacher's  teaching,  as  he  himself  understood  it.  Now, 
he  did  not  understand  Ms  teaching  as  a  distant  ideal  of 
humanity,  the  execution  of  w^liich  is  impossible,  not  as 
visionary,  poetical  fancies,  with  which  he  captivated  the 
simple-minded  inhabitants  of  Galilee,  hut  as  a  deed  which 
would  save  humanity.  And  he  did  not  dream  on  the 
cross,  but  spoke  loud,  and  died  for  his  teaching,  and  in 
exactly  the  same  manner  many  other  men  have  died  and 
will  die.  We  cannot  say  of  such  a  teaching  that  it  is  a 
dream. 

Every  teaching  of  the  truth  is  a  dream  for  those  who 


MY    RELIGION  41 

have  gone  astray.  We  have  reached  such  a  point  that 
there  are  many  men  (I  was  among  their  number)  who  say 
that  this  teaching  is  visionary  l)ecause  it  is  not  in  accord 
witli  human  nature.  It  is  not  in  accord  with  human 
nature,  they  say,  to  offer  the  other  cheek,  when  a  man  is 
struck  on  one  cheek,  nor  to  give  up  one's  property  to  a 
stranger,  nor  to  work  for  another,  and  not  for  oneself.  It 
is  human  nature,  they  say,  to  defend  one's  safety,  the 
safety  of  one's  family,  one's  property,  in  other  words,  it  is 
in  accord  with  human  nature  to  struggle  for  existence. 
A  learned  jurist  will  prove  in  a  scientific  manner  that  it 
is  man's  most  sacred  duty  to  defend  his  rights,  that  is,  to 
struggle. 

But  we  need  but  for  a  moment  to  renounce  the  idea 
that  the  social  structure,  which  exists  and  is  made  by 
men,  is  the  best,  the  most  sacred  social  structure,  and  the 
objection  that  Christ's  teaching  is  not  in  accord  with 
human  nature  is  immediately  turned  against  these  who 
object.  Who  will  deny  that  it  is  repulsive  and  painful  to 
human  nature,  not  only  to  torture  or  kill  a  man,  but 
even  to  torture  a  dog,  or  to  kill  a  chicken  or  a  calf  ?  (I 
know  men  living  by  agricultural  labour,  who  have  stopped 
eating  meat  only  because  they  had  themselves  to  kill 
their  animals.)  And  yet  the  whole  structure  of  our  life 
is  such  that  every  personal  good  of  man  is  gained  by  the 
sufferings  of  other  men,  which  are  contrary  to  human 
nature.  The  whole  structure  of  our  life,  the  whole  com- 
plicated mechanism  of  our  institutions,  which  have 
violence  for  their  aim,  testify  to  this,  that  violence  is 
exceedingly  repulsive  to  human  nature. 

Not  one  judge  would  have  the  courage  to  strangle  the 
man  whom  he  has  sentenced  according  to  his  law.  Not 
one  chief  would  have  the  courage  to  take  a  peasant  away 
from  a  weeping  family  and  lock  him  up  in  prison.  Not  one 
general  or  soldier  would,  without  discipline,  oath,  or  war, 
kill  a  hundred  Turks  or  Germans,  and  lay  waste  their  vil- 


42  MY    RELIGION 

lages  ;  he  would  not  even  have  the  courage  to  wound  a  sin- 
gle man.  All  this  is  done  only  thanks  to  that  complicated 
political  and  social  machine,  whose  problem  it  is  so  to 
scatter  the  responsibility  of  the  atrocities  which  are  per- 
petrated so  that  no  man  may  feel  the  unnaturalness  of 
these  acts.  Some  write  laws  ;  others  apply  them  ;  others 
again  muster  men,  educating  in  them  the  habit  of  disci- 
pline, that  is,  of  senseless  and  irresponsible  obedience ; 
others  again  —  these  same  mustered  men  —  commit 
every  kind  of  violence,  even  killing  men,  without  know- 
ing why  and  for  what  purpose.  But  a  man  need  but 
a  moment  mentally  free  himself  from  this  net  of  the  social 
structure,  in  which  he  is  caught,  and  he  will  know  what 
is  not  in  accord  with  his  nature. 

If  we  will  not  affirm  that  the  habitual  evil,  which  we 
practise,  is  an  unchangeable,  divine  truth,  it  will  be  clear 
to  us  what  is  natural  and  proper  for  man,  —  whether  it  is 
violence,  or  Christ's  law ;  whether  to  know  that  my  peace 
and  security  and  that  of  my  family,  all  my  joys  and 
pleasures,  are  bought  by  the  poverty,  debauch,  and  suffer- 
ing of  millions,  —  by  annual  gallows,  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  suffering  prisoners  and  millions  of  soldiers, 
policemen,  and  guards,  torn  away  from  their  families  and 
dulled  by  discipline,  who  with  loaded  pistols,  to  be  aimed 
at  hungry  men,  secure  the  amusements  for  me ;  whether 
to  buy  every  dainty  piece  which  I  put  into  my  mouth,  or 
into  the  mouths  of  my  children,  at  the  cost  of  all  that 
suffering  of  humanity,  which  is  inevitable  for  the  ac- 
quisition of  these  pieces  ;  or  to  know  that  any  piece  is 
only  then  my  piece  when  nobody  needs  it,  and  nobody 
suffers  for  it. 

We  need  only  to  understand  that  it  is  so,  that  every 
joy  of  mine,  every  minute  of  peace,  is  in  our  structure, of 
life  bought  at  the  cost  of  the  privations  and  sufferings 
of  tbousands  who  arc  restrained  by  violence  ;  we  need 
but  understand  this,  in  order  that  we  may  comprehend 


MY    RELIGION  43 

what  is  proper  for  a  man's  whole  nature,  that  is,  not  only 
for  his  animal,  but  both  for  his  rational  and  his  animal 
nature ;  we  need  only  understand  Christ's  law  in  all  its 
signiticance,  with  all  its  consequences,  in  order  that  we 
may  understand  that  Christ's  teaching  is  in  accord  with 
human  nature,  that  it  consists  even  in  this,  that  we  reject 
the  visionary  teaching  of  men  about  resisting  evil,  which 
is  not  in  accord  with  human  nature,  and  which  makes 
their  life  miserable. 

Christ's  teaching  about  non-resistance  to  evil  is  a 
dream !  And  this,  that  the  life  of  men,  into  whose  souls 
pity  and  love  for  one  another  is  put,  has  passed,  for  some, 
in  providing  stakes,  knouts,  racks,  cat-o'-nine-tails,  tearing 
of  nostrils,  inquisitions,  fetters,  hard  labour,  gallows,  exe- 
cutions by  shooting,  solitary  confinements,  prisons  for 
women  and  childreu,  in  providing  slaughter  of  tens  of 
thousands  in  war,  in  pro\dding  revolutions  and  seditions ; 
and  for  others,  in  executing  all  these  horrors  ;  and  for 
others  again,  in  avoiding  all  these  sufferings  and  retalia- 
ting for  them,  —  such  a  life  is  not  a  dream  ! 

We  need  only  understand  Christ's  teaching,  in  order 
that  we  may  comprehend  that  the  world,  not  the  one 
which  was  given  by  God  for  man's  joy,  but  the  one  which 
is  established  by  men  for  their  destruction,  is  a  dream, 
the  wildest,  most  terrible  dream,  the  delirium  of  an  insane 
man,  from  which  we  need  only  once  awaken,  in  order 
that  we  may  never  again  return  to  this  terrible  vision. 

God  came  down  upon  earth ;  the  Son  of  God,  one  of 
the  persons  of  the  Holy  Trinity,  became  incarnate  and 
redeemed  Adam's  sin  ;  this  God,  so  we  have  been  taught 
to  believe,  must  have  said  something  mysterious  and 
mystical,  something  which  it  is  hard  to  understand,  which 
can  be  understood  only  by  means  of  faith  and  grace,  and 
suddenly  God's  words  are  so  simple,  so  clear,  so  rational. 
God  says  simply,  Do  not  do  evil  to  one  another,  and  there 
will  be  no  evil.     Is  it  possible  God's  revelation  is  so 


44  MY    RELIGION 

simple  ?  Is  it  possible  this  is  all  God  said  ?  It  seems 
to  us  that  we  kuow  all  this,  for  it  is  so  simple. 

Elijah  the  prophet,  running  away  from  men,  hid  him- 
self in  a  cave,  and  he  had  a  revelation  that  God  would 
appear  to  him  at  the  entrance  of  the  cave.  There  was  a 
storm,  and  the  trees  were  broken  by  it.  Elijah  thought 
that  this  was  God,  and  he  looked  out,  but  God  was  not 
there.  Then  there  came  a  rain-storm ;  the  thunder  and 
lightning  were  terrible.  Elijah  went  out  to  see  whether 
God  was  there,  but  he  was  not.  Then  there  was  an  earth- 
quake ;  fire  rose  from  the  earth,  rocks  were  split,  and 
mountains  caved  in.  Elijah  looked  out,  but  God  was  not 
there.  Then  it  quieted  down,  and  a  light  breeze  blew 
from  the  refreshed  fields.  Elijah  looked  out,  and  God  was 
there.  Even  so  are  these  simple  words.  Do  not  resist 
evil. 

They  are  very  simple,  but  in  them  is  expressed  the  law 
of  God  and  of  man,  the  only  and  eternal  law.  This 
law  is  to  such  a  degree  eternal  that,  if  there  is  in  histor- 
ical life  a  movement  toward  abolishing  evil,  it  exists  only 
thanks  to  those  men  who  so  understood  Christ's  teaching, 
and  who  endured  the  evil  and  did  not  resist  it  through 
violence.  The  movement  of  humanity  toward  the  good 
takes  place,  not  thanks  to  the  tormentors,  but  to  the  tor- 
mented. As  fire  does  not  put  out  fire,  so  evil  does  not 
put  out  evil.  Only  the  good  meeting  the  evil,  and  not 
becoming  contaminated  by  it,  vanquishes  the  evil. 

In  the  world  of  the  human  soul  there  is  an  immutable 
law,  like  the  law  of  Galileo,  only  more  immutable,  more 
clear,  and  more  full.  Men  may  depart  from  it,  concealing 
it  from  others,  and  still  the  progress  of  humanity  toward 
the  good  can  take  place  only  on  this  path.  Every  step  in 
advance  has  been  made  only  in  the  name  of  non-resist- 
ance to  evil.  And  a  disciple  of  Christ  may,  with  greater 
assurance  than  Galileo,  affirm  in  view  of  all  possible 
offences  and  menaces,  And  yet  the  evil  has  been  destroyed 


MY    RELIGION  45 

not  by  violence,  but  by  good.  And  if  this  progress  is  slow, 
it  is  so  because  the  clearness,  simplicity,  rationality,  in- 
evitableness,  and  obligatoriness  of  Christ's  teaching  have 
been  concealed  from  the  majority  of  men  in  a  most  cun- 
ning and  dangerous  manner ;  they  have  been  concealed 
under  a  false  teaching  which  falsely  calls  itself  his 
teaching. 


Everything  confirmed  the  correctness  of  the  meaning 
of  Christ's  teaching,  as  it  was  now  revealed  to  me.  For 
a  long  time  I  could  not  get  accustomed  to  the  strange  idea 
that,  after  the  eighteen  hundred  years  that  Christ's  law  had 
been  professed  by  billions  of  people,  and  after  the  thousands 
of  men  who  had  devoted  their  lives  to  the  study  of  this  law, 
I  should  now  have  discovered  this  law  as  something  new. 
However  strange  this  was,  it  was  so :  Christ's  teaching  of 
non-resistance  to  evil  arose  before  me  as  something  en- 
tirely new,  of  which  I  did  not  have  the  least  conception. 
And  I  asked  myself,  How  could  this  have  happened  ?  I 
must  have  had  some  false  idea  of  the  meaning  of  Christ's 
teaching,  since  I  was  able  so  to  misunderstand  it.  And 
there  was  a  false  idea. 

When  I  approached  the  study  of  the  Gospel,  I  was  not 
in  the  position  of  a  man  who,  having  never  before  heard 
of  Christ's  teaching,  suddenly  heard  of  it  for  the  first 
time.  There  was  in  me  already  a  whole  theory  of  how  I 
must  understand  it.  Christ  did  not  present  himself  to  me 
as  a  prophet,  who  reveals  to  me  a  divine  law,  but  as  a 
continuator  and  elucidator  of  God's  famihar  and  unques- 
tionable law.  I  already  had  a  whole,  definite,  and  very 
complicated  teaching  about  God,  the  creation  of  the  world 
and  man,  and  his  commandments,  given  to  men  through 
Moses. 

In  the  gospels  I  came  across  the  words,  You  have  been 

told.  An  eye  for  an  eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth ;  but  I 

tell  you.  Do  not  resist  evil.     The  words.  An  eye  for  an 

eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth,  were  Moses*  commandment. 

46 


MY   RELIGION  47 

The  words,  I  say,  Do  not  resist  evil,  were  a  new  command- 
ment, which  rejected  the  first. 

If  1  had  looked  straight  at  Christ's  teaching,  without 
that  theological  theory  which  I  had  imbibed  with  my 
mother's  milk,  I  should  have  understood  the  simple  mean- 
ing of  Christ's  words  in  a  simple  manner.  I  should  have 
understood  that  Christ  rejects  the  old  law  and  gives  a  new 
law.  But  it  had  been  impressed  upon  my  mind  that 
Christ  does  not  reject  Moses'  law,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
confirms  it  down  to  the  smallest  point  and  tittle,  and  com- 
plements it.  Verses  17  and  18  of  Chap  V.  of  Matthew, 
in  which  this  is  asserted,  had  always  during  my  former 
readings  startled  me  by  their  obscurity,  and  had  provoked 
doubts.  In  so  far  as  I  then  knew  the  Old  Testament, 
especially  the  last  books  of  Moses,  in  which  those  trifling, 
senseless,  and  often  cruel  rules  are  laid  down,  each  time 
with  the  statement,  And  God  said  to  Moses,  —  it  seemed 
strange  to  me  how  Christ  could  have  confirmed  all  this 
law,  and  unintelligible  why  he  should  have  done  so.  But 
I  then  left  the  question,  without  trying  to  solve  it.  I  took 
on  trust  the  interpretation,  with  which  I  had  been  im- 
pressed since  childhood,  that  both  these  laws  were  the 
productions  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  that  these  laws  were  in 
agreement,  and  that  Christ  confirmed  the  law  of  Moses 
and  fulfilled  and  complemented  it. 

How  this  complementing  was  done,  how  the  contradic- 
tions were  solved  that  are  so  startling  in  the  Gospel  it- 
self, and  in  these  verses,  and  in  the  words,  But  I  say,  I 
never  accounted  to  myself  clearly.  But  now,  since  I  came 
to  understand  the  simple  and  direct  meaning  of  Christ's 
teaching,  I  comprehended  that  the  two  laws  were  contra- 
dictory, and  that  there  could  be  no  such  a  thing  as  a 
harmonization  or  complementing  of  one  by  the  other,  that 
it  was  necessary  to  accept  one  of  the  two,  and  that  the 
interpretation  of  Matt.  v.  17  and  18,  which  had  startled  me 
before  on  account  of  their  obscurity,  must  be  incorrect. 


48  MY    EELIGION" 

Wlien  I  read  these  verses  again,  the  verses  which  here- 
tofore had  seemed  so  obscure  to  me,  I  was  struck  by  the 
simple  and  clear  meaning  which  was  suddenly  ravealed 
to  me. 

This  meaning  was  revealed  to  me,  not  because  I  inter- 
preted something  into  them,  or  transposed  anything,  but 
only  because  I  rejected  the  artificial  interpretation  which 
has  been  attached  to  this  passage. 

Christ  says  (Matt.  v.  17  and  18):  Think  not  that  I  am 
come  to  destroy  the  law,  or  the  prophets  ;  I  am  not  come 
to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil.  For  verily  I  say  unto  you.  Till 
heaven  and  earth  pass,  one  jot  or  one  tittle  shall  in  no 
wise  pass  from  the  law,  till  all  be  fulfilled. 

And  Verse  20  adds.  Except  your  righteousness  shall 
exceed  the  righteousness  of  the  scribes  and  Pharisees,  ye 
shall  in  no  case  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

Christ  says,  I  have  not  come  to  break  the  eternal  law, 
for  the  fulfilment  of  which  your  books  and  prophecies 
have  been  written,  but  to  teach  vou  to  fulfil  the  eternal 
law ;  I  am  not  speaking  of  the  law  which  the  Pharisees, 
your  teachers,  call  the  law  of  God,  but  of  the  eternal  law 
which  is  less  subject  to  change  than  heaven  and  earth. 

I  express  the  same  idea  in  other  words  for  the  purpose 
of  taking  the  mind  away  from  the  habitual  false  interpre- 
tation. If  it  were  not  for  this  false  comprehension,  the 
idea  could  not  be  expressed  more  exactly  and  better  than 
it  is  expressed  in  these  verses. 

The  interpretation  that  Christ  does  not  reject  the  law 
is  based  on  this,  that,  thanks  to  the  comparison  with  the 
jot  of  the  written  law,  the  meaning  of  written  law  has 
here  without  any  foundation  and  contrary  to  the  meaning 
been  ascribed  to  the  eternal  law.  But  Christ  is  not  speak- 
ing of  the  written  law.  If  Christ  were  speaking  in  this  pas- 
sage of-  the  written  law,  he  would  use  the  customary 
expression.  The  law  and  the  prophets,  which  he  always 
uses  when  he  speaks  of  the  written  law ;  but  he  employs 


MY    RELIGION 


49 


an  entirely  different  expression.  The  law  or  the  prophets. 
If  Christ  were  speaking  of  the  written  law,  he  would  in 
the  next  verse,  which  is  the  continuation  of  the  thought, 
use  the  words,  The  law  or  the  prophets,  and  not  the  word. 
The  law,  without  any  addition,  as  it  stands  in  this  verse. 
Moreover,  Christ,  according  to  the  Gospel  of  Luke,  uses 
the  same  expression  in  such  a  context  that  its  meaning 
becomes  indubitable. 

In  Luke  xvi.  16,  Christ,  speaking  to  the  Pharisees,  who 
see  righteousness  in  the  written  law,  says,  Ye  justify 
yourselves  before  men ;  but  God  knoweth  your  hearts : 
for  that  which  is  highly  esteemed  among  men  is  abomi- 
nation in  the  sight  of  God.  The  law  and  the  prophets 
were  until  John :  since  that  time  the  kingdom  of  God  is 
preached,  and  every  man  presseth  into  it.  And  immedi- 
ately after,  in  Verse  17,  he  says,  It  is  easier  for  heaven 
and  earth  to  pass,  than  one  tittle  of  the  law  to  fail. 

With  the  words.  The  law  and  the  prophets  until  John, 
Christ  nullifies  the  written  law.  With  the  words,  It  is 
easier  for  heaven  and  earth  to  pass,  than  one  tittle  of  the 
law  to  fail,  he  confirms  the  eternal  law.  In  the  first 
words,  he  says,  The  law  and  the  prophets,  that  is,  the 
written  law ;  in  the  second  he  says  simply.  The  Law,  con- 
sequently he  means  the  eternal  law.  Consequently  it  is 
clear  that  here  the  eternal  law  is  opposed  to  the  written 
law,i  and  that  precisely  the  same  distinction  is  made  in 
Matthew,  where  the  eternal  law  is  defined  by,  The  law 
or  the  prophets. 

The  history  of  the  text  of  Verses  17  and  18  is  remark- 

1  Moreover,  as  though  on  purpose  that  there  should  be  no  doubt  as 
to  what  law  he  is  talking  about,  he,  in  connection  with  this,  im- 
mediately adduces  an  example,  a  most  glaring  example,  of  the  rejec- 
tion of  the  law  of  Moses  by  means  of  the  eternal  law,  from  which  not 
one  jot  can  be  omitted  ;  in  quoting  the  most  glaring  contradiction  to 
the  law  of  Moses  which  there  is  in  the  Gospel,  he  says  (Luke  xvi. 
18),  Whosoever  putteth  away  his  wife,  and  marrieth  another,  com- 
mitteth  adultery,  —  that  is,  in  the  written  law  divorce  is  permitted, 
but  according  to  the  eternal  law  it  is  a  sin.  —  Author' $  Note. 


50  MY   RELIGION 

able  from  the  variants.  In  the  majority  of  texts  we  find 
only  the  word  laiv,  without  the  addition  of  prophets. 
With  such  a  reading  there  can  be  no  interpretation  which 
would  make  it  mean  the  written  law.  But  in  the  other 
texts,  in  Tischendorf  s  and  in  the  canonical,  there  is  added 
the  prophets,  not  with  the  conjunction  and,  but  with  or,  — 
the  law  and  the  prophets,  —  which  again  excludes  the 
meaning  of  the  written  law. 

But  in  certain  texts,  which  are  not  accepted  by  the 
church,  the  word  prophets  is  connected  by  and,  and  not 
by  or  ;  and  in  the  same  texts,  where  the  word  law  is  re- 
peated, and  the  prophets  is  again  added.  Thus,  with  this 
change  the  whole  utterance  is  made  to  mean  that  Christ 
is  speaking  only  of  the  written  law. 

These  variants  give  the  history  of  the  interpretations  of 
this  passage.  The  only  clear  meaning  is,  that  Christ,  as 
also  according  to  Luke,  is  speaking  of  the  eternal  law ; 
but  among  the  number  of  the  recorders  of  the  gospels 
there  are  those  who  want  to  acknowledge  the  obligatori- 
ness of  the  written  law  of  Moses,  and  they  add  and  the 
prophets  to  the  word  lav),  and  change  the  meaning. 

Other  Christians,  who  do  not  recognize  the  books  of 
Moses,  either  exclude  the  addition,  or  change  the  word 
and,  KaC,  to  or,  tj.  And  with  this  or  the  passage  gets  into 
the  canon.  But,  in  spite  of  the  clearness  and  obviousness 
of  the  text  in  the  form  in  which  it  has  entered  the  canon, 
the  canonical  commentators  continue  to  interpret  it  in  the 
spirit  in  which  were  made  the  changes' that  did  not  enter 
into  the  text.  This  passage  has  been  subjected  to  innu- 
merable interpretations,  which  depart  the  more  from  the 
direct  meaning,  the  less  the  commentator  agrees  with 
the  directest,  simplest  meaning  of  Christ's  teaching,  and 
the  majority  of  the  commentators  retain  the  apocryphal 
meaning,  the  one  which  is  rejected  by  the  text. 

To  convince  ourselves  completely  that  in  these  verses 
Christ  speaks  only  of  the  eternal  law,  we  need  only  grasp 


MY   RELIGION  61 

the  meaning  of  the  word  which  has  given  rise  to  the 
false  interpretations.  In  English  law,  in  Greek  v6fio<;,  in 
Hebrew  tlwrali  has  two  chief  meanings,  one,  that  of  law 
independently  of  its  expression  ;  and  the  other,  the  written 
expression  of  what  certain  men  regard  as  the  law.  The 
distinction  between  these  two  meanings  exists  in  all 
languages. 

In  Greek,  in  the  epistles  of  Paul,  this  distinction  is  occa- 
sionally defined  by  the  use  of  the  article.  Without  the 
article  Paul  uses  this  word  generally  in  the  sense  of  the 
written  law ;  with  the  article,  in  the  sense  of  God's  eternal 
law. 

Witli  the  ancient  Jews,  in  the  prophets,  in  Isaiah,  the 
word  laiv,  tliorah,  is  always  used  in  the  sense  of  the 
eternal,  only,  unexpressed  revelation,  —  God's  injunction. 
The  same  word,  law,  tliorah,  is  for  the  first  time  used  by 
Ezdra,  and  later  in  the  Talmud,  in  the  sense  of  the  written 
five  books  of  Moses,  over  which  the  general  title  Thorah 
is  written,  just  as  we  use  the  word  Bible,  but  with  this 
difference,  that  we  have  a  word  with  which  to  distinguish 
between  the  Bible  and  God's  law,  while  with  the  Jews  the 
same  word  is  used  to  express  both  ideas. 

And  so  Christ,  using  the  word  law,  tliorah,  employs  it, 
now  confirming  it,  Hke  Isaiah  and  the  other  prophets,  in 
the  sense  of  God's  law,  which  is  eternal,  now  rejecting 
it,  in  the  sense  of  the  written  law  of  the  five  books.  But, 
to  distinguish  the  two,  whenever  in  rejecting  it  he  em- 
ploys the  word  in  the  sense  of  the  written  law,  he  always 
adds,  and  the  prophets,  or  the  word  your,  adding  it  to  the 
word  law. 

When  he  says,  Do  not  unto  another  what  thou  wouldst 
not  should  be  done  unto  thee,  —  in  tliis  is  the  law  and 
the  prophets,  he  is  speaking  of  the  written  law.  He  says 
that  the  whole  written  law  can  be  reduced  to  one  expres- 
sion of  the  eternal  law,  and  with  these  words  he  nullifies 
the  written  law. 


52  MY    RELIGION 

When  he  says  (Luke  xvi.  16),  The  law  and  the  prophets 
until  John  the  Baptist,  he  is  speaking  of  the  written  law, 
and  with  these  words  rejects  its  obligatoriness. 

When  he  says  (John  vii.  19),  Did  not  Moses  give  you 
the  law,  and  yet  none  of  you  keepeth  the  law,  or  (John 
viii.  17),  It  is  also  written  in  your  law,  or  (John  xv.  25), 
That  is  written  in  their  law,  —  he  is  speaking  of  the 
written  law,  of  the  law  which  he  rejects,  of  that  very  law 
which  condemns  him  to  death.  John  xix.  7 :  The  Jews 
answered  him,  We  have  a  law,  and  by  our  law  he  ought 
to  die.  It  is  evident  that  this  law  of  the  Jews,  the  one 
by  which  they  put  to  death,  was  not  the  law  which 
Christ  taught.  But  when  Christ  says,  I  am  not  come  to 
destroy  the  law,  but  to  teach  you  to  fulfil  it,  for  nothing 
can  be  changed  in  the  law,  but  everything  must  be  ful- 
filled, —  he  is  not  speaking  of  the  written  law,  but  of  the 
divine,  eternal  law,  which  he  is  confirming. 

But  let  us  assume  that  all  these  are  formal  proofs  ;  let 
us  assume  that  I  have  carefully  picked  out  contexts  and 
variants,  and  have  carefully  concealed  everything  which 
was  against  my  interpretations ;  let  us  assume  that  the 
interpretations  of  the  church  are  very  clear  and  convinc- 
ing, and  that  Christ  really  did  not  destroy  the  law  of 
Moses,  but  left  it  in  its  full  force.  Let  us  assume  that  this 
is  so.     In  that  case  what  does  Christ  teach  ? 

According  to  the  interpretations  of  the  church  he  taught 
that  he,  the  second  person  of  the  Trinity,  the  Son  of  God 
the  Father,  came  upon  earth  and  with  his  death  redeemed 
Adam's  sin.  But  every  person  who  has  read  the  Gospel 
knows  that  in  the  gospels  Christ  either  says  nothing 
about  this,  or  speaks  in  very  doubtful  terms.  But  let  us 
assume  that  we  do  not  know  how  to  read,  and  that  the 
gospels  do  speak  of  it.  In  any  case,  Christ's  reference  to 
his  being  the  second  person  of  the  Trinity  and  redeeming 
the  sins  of  humanity  occupies  a  very  small  and  obscure 
part  of   the  Gospel.    In  what  does  the  rest  of    Christ's 


MY    RELIGION  53 

teachiug  consist  ?  It  is  impossible  to  deny,  and  all  Chris- 
tians have  always  recognized  it,  that  the  chief  contents  of 
Christ's  teaching  are  the  teaching  about  the  life  of  men, — 
how  men  must  live  among  themselves. 

If  we  recognize  that  Christ  taught  a  new  manner  of 
life,  we  must  represent  to  ourselves  certain  definite  men, 
among  whom  he  taught. 

Let  us  represent  to  ourselves  Paissians,  or  Englishmen, 
or  Chinamen,  or  Hindoos,  or  even  savages  on  some  islands, 
and  we  shall  see  that  every  nation  always  has  its  own 
rules  of  hfe,  its  own  law  of  life,  and  that,  therefore,  if  a 
teacher  teaches  a  new  law  of  life,  he  by  this  very  act 
destroys  the  former  law ;  if  he  does  not  destroy  it,  he 
cannot  teach.  So  it  will  be  in  England,  in  China,  and 
with  us.  The  teacher  will  inevitably  destroy  our  laws, 
which  we  consider  dear  and  almost  sacred ;  but  among  us 
it  may  happen  that  the  preacher,  teaching  us  the  new 
life,  will  destroy  only  our  civil  and  political  laws,  our  cus- 
toms, but  will  not  touch  on  the  laws  which  we  consider 
divine,  though  it  is  hard  to  suppose  so.  But  among  the 
Jewish  nation,  who  had  only  one  law,  —  all  of  it  divine 
and  embracing  the  whole  life  with  all  the  minutest  de- 
tails, —  what  could  a  preacher  preach  among  such  a 
nation,  having  declared  in  advance  that  all  the  law  of  the 
nation  to  whom  he  was  preaching  was  inviolable  ?  But 
let  us  assume  that  this,  too,  is  not  a  proof.  Let  those  who 
interpret  Christ's  words  as  meaning  that  he  confirmed  the 
law  of  Moses  explain  to  themselves  whom  Christ  arraigned 
during  his  whole  activity,  against  whom  he  rose,  calling 
them  Pharisees,  lawyers,  scribes. 

Who  are  those  who  did  not  receive  Christ's  teaching 
and  with  their  high  priests  crucified  him  ?  If  Christ 
recognized  the  law  of  Moses,  where  were  those  real 
executors  of  the  law,  whose  actions  Christ  would  have 
approved  of  ?     Was  there  really  not  one  ? 

We  were  told  that  the  Pharisees  were  a  sect.     The 


54  MY   RELIGION 

Jews  do  not  say  so.  They  say,  The  Pharisees  are  the 
true  executors  of  the  law.  Let  us  assume  that  they  are 
a  sect.  The  Sadducees  are  a  sect,  too.  Where,  then, 
were  the  real  men,  those  who  were  not  the  sect  ? 

According  to  the  Gospel  of  John  they  are  all  enemies 
of  Christ  and  are  directly  called  Jews.  They  do  not  agree 
with  Christ's  teacliiug  and  oppose  him,  only  because  they 
are  Jews.  But  in  the  gospels  it  is  not  the  Pharisees  and 
Sadducees  alone  who  are  pointed  out  as  the  enemies  of 
Christ ;  it  is  also  the  lawyers,  those  who  guard  the  law 
of  Moses,  the  scribes,  those  who  read  the  law,  the  elders, 
who  are  always  regarded  as  the  representatives  of  the 
national  wisdom. 

Christ  says,  I  have  not  come  to  call  the  righteous  to 
repentance,  to  a  change  of  hfe,  /xerdvoLa,  but  the  sinners. 
Where  were  those  righteous  ?  Who  were  they  ?  Is  it 
possible  it  was  only  Nicodemus  ?  But  even  Nicodemus 
is  represented  to  us  as  a  good  man  gone  astray.  We  are 
so  accustomed  to  this,  to  say  the  least,  strange  interpreta- 
tion that  the  Pharisees  and  some  evil  Jews  crucified 
Christ  that  the  simple  question  as  to  where  the  real  Jews 
were,  who  were  not  Pharisees  and  not  evil,  and  who  kept 
the  law,  does  not  even  occur  to  us.  We  need  only  put 
this  question  in  order  that  all  may  become  entirely  clear. 
Christ  —  be  he  God  or  man  —  brought  his  teaching  into 
the  world  amidst  a  people  that  kept  the  law,  which 
determined  the  whole  life  of  man  and  which  was  called 
God's  law.     What  could  Christ's  relation  to  this  law  be  ? 

Every  prophet  and  teacher  of  faith,  in  revealing  to  men 
the  law  of  God,  always  finds  among  men  what  they  con- 
sider to  be  the  law  of  God,  and  cannot  escape  the  double 
use  of  the  word  law,  which  signifies  what  these  men 
falsely  call  the  law  of  God,  yotcr  law,  and  what  is  the 
true,  eternal  law  of  God.  Moreover,  in  addition  to  not 
being  able  to  escape  the  double  meaning  of  this  word,  the 
preacher  frequently  does  not  wish  to  escape  it,  and  pur- 


MY   RELIGION  55 

posely  combines  the  two  conceptions,  in  order  to  point  out 
that  in  the  law,  which  the  men  profess  whom  he  is  convert- 
ing, and  which  in  its  totality  is  false,  there  are  eternal 
truths ;  and  every  preacher  takes  these  laws,  in  so  far  as 
they  are  directed  toward  the  truth,  for  the  basis  of  his  ser- 
mons. Christ  does  the  same  among  the  Jews,  with  whom 
both  laws  are  called  by  the  one  name  of  thorah.  In  rela- 
tion to  Moses'  law,  and  still  more  in  relation  to  the  proph- 
ets, especially  Isaiah,  whose  words  he  quotes  all  the  time, 
Jesus  admits  that  in  the  Jewish  law  and  in  the  prophets 
there  are  eternal,  divine  truths,  which  agree  with  the 
eternal  law,  and  these,  hke  the  utterance,  Love  God  and 
thy  neighbour,  he  takes  for  the  basis  of  his  own  teaching. 

Christ  several  times  expresses  the  same  idea  (Luke  x. 
26).  He  says,  What  is  written  in  the  law  ?  How  read- 
est  thou  ?  —  Even  in  the  law  it  is  possible  to  find  an 
eternal  truth,  if  you  know  how  to  read  it.  And  he 
frequently  points  out  that  the  commandment  of  their 
law  about  the  love  of  God  and  of  their  neighbour  is  a 
commandment  of  the  eternal  law  (Matt.  xiii.  52).  After 
all  those  parables  with  which  he  explains  to  his  disciples 
the  meaning  of  his  teaching,  at  the  end  of  everything,  as 
referring  to  all  that  precedes,  Christ  says.  Therefore  every 
scribe,  that  is,  educated  man,  who  is  taught  the  truth,  is 
like  a  householder,  who  takes  out  of  his  treasure  (together, 
indifferently)  things  new  and  old. 

St.  Iren?eus,  and  with  him  the  whole  church,  under- 
stands these  words  in  the  same  way,  but  quite  arbitrarily, 
and,  violating  the  meaning  of  the  discourse,  ascribes  to 
these  words  a  meaning  as  though  everything  old  were 
sacred.  The  clear  significance  is  this,  that  he  who  needs 
the  good  takes  not  only  the  new  things,  but  also  the  old, 
and  that  because  it  is  old  it  cannot  be  rejected.  Christ 
says  with  these  words  that  he  does  not  reject  that  which 
in  the  old  law  is  eternal.  But  when  they  speak  to  him 
of  the  whole  law  or  of  its  forms,  he  says  that  it  is  not 


56  MY    RELIGION 

possible  to  put  new  wine  into  old  bottles.  Christ  cannot 
confirm  the  whole  law,  neither  can  he  reject  the  whole 
law  and  the  prophets,  —  the  law,  in  which  it  says.  Love 
thy  neighbour  as  thyself,  —  and  those  prophets,  in  whose 
words  he  frequently  utters  his  thoughts.  And  so,  in 
place  of  this  simple  and  clear  comprehension  of  the  sim- 
plest words,  as  they  are  said,  and  as  they  are  confirmed  by 
the  whole  teaching  of  Christ,  there  is  substituted  a  hazy 
interpretation,  which  introduces  a  contradiction  where  it 
does  not  exist,  and  thus  destroys  the  meaning  of  the 
teaching:  it  reduces  the  teaching  to  words,  and  reestab- 
lishes in  fact  the  teaching  of  Moses  in  all  its  savage 
cruelty. 

According  to  all  church  interpretations,  especially  since 
the  fifth  century,  Christ  did  not  destroy  the  written  law, 
but  confirmed  it.  But  how  did  he  confirm  it  ?  How  can 
the  law  of  Christ  be  united  with  that  of  Moses  ?  To  this 
there  is  no  answer.  In  all  the  commentaries  they  have  a 
play  on  words,  and  say  that  Christ  fulfilled  the  law  of 
Moses  in  that  in  him  were  fulfilled  the  prophecies,  and  in 
that  Christ  through  us,  through  men's  faith  in  him,  ful- 
filled the  law.  But  the  only  essential  question  for  every 
believer  as  to  how  we  are  to  unite  the  two  contradictory 
laws,  which  determine  the  life  of  men,  remains  without 
even  an  attempt  at  a  solution.  And  the  contradiction 
which  exists  between  the  verse  in  which  it  says  that 
Christ  does  not  destroy  the  law,  and  the  verse  in  which 
it  says,  You  have  been  told  .  .  .  but  I  say,  —  and  be- 
tween the  whole  spirit  of  Moses'  teaching  and  that  of 
Christ,  remains  in  full  force. 

Let  any  man  who  is  interested  in  this  question  himself 
consult  the  church  interpretation^  of  this  passage,  from 
John  Chrysostom  until  our  time.  Only  after  reading  these 
long  interpretations  will  he  be  clearly  convinced  that  an 
artificial  contradiction  has  been  introduced  where  it  did 
Ciot  exist. 


MY    RELIGION  67 

The  impossible  attempts  at  harmonizing  what  cannot  be 
united  show  clearly  that  this  harmonization  is  not  an 
error  of  thought,  but  that  it  has  a  clear  and  definite  purpose, 
—  it  is  necessary,  and  it  is  even  obvious  why  it  is  necessary. 

This  is  what  John  Chrysostom  says,  in  replying  to 
those  who  reject  the  law  of  Moses  (Commentary  to  the 
Gospel  of  Matthew,  Vol.  I.  pp.  320  and  321) : 

"  Investigating  further  the  ancient  law,  in  which  we 
are  commanded  to  pluck  out  an  eye  for  an  eye,  and  a  tooth 
for  a  tootli,  they  retort,  How  can  he  who  says  this  be 
good  ?  What  shall  we  say  to  this  ?  This,  that,  on  the 
contrary,  it  is  the  highest  token  of  God's  love  of  men. 
He  did  not  establish  this  law  that  we  might  pluck  out 
each  other's  eyes,  but  that,  fearing  lest  we  should  suffer 
this  evil  from  others,  we  might  not  commit  this  evil 
against  them.  Similarly,  when  he  threatened  the  Nine- 
vites  with  destruction,  he  did  not  wish  to  destroy  them 
(for  if  he  had  wished  to  do  so,  he  ought  to  have  kept 
silent) ;  he  wished  only  to  make  them  better  through  this 
threat,  to  leave  his  anger.  Even  so  he  determined  a  pun- 
ishment for  those  who  were  so  bold  as  to  be  ready  to 
pluck  out  their  neighbours'  eyes,  with  this  purpose  in  view 
that,  if  they  should  not  refrain  from  their  cruelty  of  their 
own  free  will,  fear  at  least  should  restrain  them  from  de- 
priving their  neighbours  of  their  eyesight.  If  this  were  a 
cruelty,  then  the  prohibition  against  murder  and  adultery 
would  also  be  a  cruelty.  Only  insane  men,  who  have 
reached  the  last  degree  of  madness,  can  speak  in  this 
manner.  But  I  to  such  a  degree  abhor  calling  these 
propositions  cruel  that  I  should  regard  the  contrary  as 
a  lawless  deed,  as  judged  in  the  light  of  sound  human 
reason.  Thou  sayest  that  God  is  cruel  because  he  has 
commanded  us  to  pluck  an  eye  out  for  an  eye ;  but  I  say 
that,  if  he  had  not  given  such  a  command,  it  \vould  have 
been  more  correct  iov  many  to  consider  him  such  as  thou 
callest  him." 


58  MY  RELIGION 

John  Chrysostom  openly  recognizes  the  law,  A  tooth 
for  a  tooth,  as  being  divine,  and  what  is  contrary  to  the 
law,  A  tooth  for  a  tooth,  that  is,  Christ's  teaching  about 
non-resistance  to  evil,  as  a  lawless  deed. 

(Pp.  322  and  323):  "Let  us  suppose  that  the  whole 
law  is  destroyed,"  John  Chrysostom  continues,  "  and  that 
no  one  fears  the  punishment  determined  by  it,  and 
that  all  sinful  men  are  allowed  fearlessly  to  live  accord- 
ing to  their  inclinations,  whether  they  be  adulterers, 
murderers,  thieves,  or  perjurers  :  will  then  not  everything 
be  perverted  ?  and  will  not  the  cities,  the  market-places, 
the  houses,  the  land,  the  sea,  and  the  whole  universe  be 
filled  with  innumerable  misdeeds  and  murders  ?  This 
is  obvious  to  all  men.  If  with  the  existing  laws,  with  the 
terror  and  the  threats,  the  evil  intentions  are  with  diffi- 
culty restrained,  what  would  prevent  men  from  deciding 
on  evil  deeds,  if  this  barrier  were  removed  ?  What 
calamities  would  then  encroach  upon  human  life  !  It  is 
cruel,  not  only  to  permit  evil  men  to  do  what  they  please, 
but  also  to  allow  a  man,  who  has  done  no  wrong,  to 
suffer,  though  he  be  innocent,  without  any  redress.  Tell 
me,  —  if  a  man,  collecting  evil  men  on  all  sides,  and 
arming  them  with  swords,  ordered  them  to  go  through 
the  city  and  kill  all  the  people  they  met,  —  could  there 
be  anything  more  inhuman  than  that  ?  On  the  contrary, 
if  another  man  bound  these  armed  men  and  locked  them 
up  by  force  in  a  prison,  and  snatched  those  who  were 
threatened  with  death  out  of  the  hands  of  the  lawless 
men,  —  could  there  be  anything  more  humane  than  this  ?  " 

John  Chrysostom  does  not  say  what  this  other  man 
will  be  guided  by  in  determining  who  is  evil.  What  if 
he  himself  is  evil  and  will  put  good^  men  into  prison  ? 

"  Now  apply  these  examples  to  the  law :  he  who  com- 
mands us  to  pluck  out  an  eye  for  an  eye  imposes  this 
terror,  as  certain  firm  fetters,  on  the  souls  of  the  sinful, 
and   is  likened  unto   the   man  who  bound  those  armed 


MY    RELIGION  59 

men :  but  he  who  should  not  have  determined  any 
punishment  for  the  transgressors  would  arm  them  with 
fearlessness,  and  would  be  likened  unto  the  man  who  dis- 
tributed the  swords  to  the  malefactors  and  sent  them 
through  the  city." 

If  John  Chrysostom  recognizes  Christ's  law,  he  ought 
to  say.  Who  will  pluck  out  the  eyes  and  teeth,  and  put 
men  into  prison  ?  If  he  who  commands  us  to  pluck  out 
an  eye  for  an  eye,  that  is,  God,  plucked  them  out  himself, 
there  would  be  no  contradiction  here ;  but  it  is  men  who 
have  to  do  this,  whereas  the  Son  of  God  told  men  that 
they  must  not  do  it.  God  said,  PuU  out  the  teeth  ;  but  the 
Son  said,  Do  not  pull  them  out.  One  or  the  other  has 
to  be  accepted,  and  John  Chrysostom,  and  with  him  the 
whole  church,  recognizes  the  command  of  God  the  Father, 
that  is,  of  Moses,  and  rejects  the  command  of  the  Son,  that 
is,  of  Christ,  whose  teaching  they  claim  to  profess.  Christ 
rejects  the  law  of  Moses,  and  gives  his  own. 

For  a  man  who  beHeves  Christ  there  is  no  contradiction. 
He  pays  no  attention  to  the  law  of  Moses,  but  believes  in 
Christ's  law,  and  fulfils  it.  For  a  man  who  believes  in  the 
law  of  Moses  there  is  also  no  contradiction.  The  Jews 
recognize  the  words  of  Christ  as  void,  and  believe  in  the 
law  of  Moses.  The  contradiction  appears  only  to  those 
who  want  to  live  according  to  the  law  of  Moses,  and  yet 
assure  themselves  and  others  that  they  beheve  in  the  law 
of  Christ,  —  to  those  whom  Christ  calls  hypocrites,  a  gen- 
eration of  vipers.     • 

Instead  of  recognizing  one  or  the  other,  the  law  of  Moses 
or  the  law  of  Christ,  they  recognize  both  as  divinely  true. 

But  when  the  question  touches  the  affairs  of  life  itself, 
they  reject  outright  the  law  of  Christ  and  recognize  the 
law  of  Moses. 

If  we  try  to  grasp  the  meaning  of  this  false  interpreta- 
tion, we  find  in  it  a  terrible,  frightful  drama  of  the  strug- 
gle of  evil  and  darkness  with  good  and  light. 


60  MY   RELIGION 

Among  the  Jewish  people,  entangled  by  numberless 
external  rules,  which  are  imposed  upon  them  by  the 
Levites  in  the  shape  of  divine  laws,  before  each  of  which 
it  says.  And  God  said  to  Moses,  —  there  appears  Christ. 
Not  only  man's  relation  to  God,  his  sacrifices,  feasts,  fasts, 
but  also  man's  relations  to  man,  —  the  national,  civil, 
domestic  relations,  all  the  details  of  his  private  life,  —  the 
circumcision,  the  cleansing  of  himself  and  of  his  vessels 
and  garments,  —  all  this  is  determined  down  to  the  mi- 
nutest details,  and  everything  is  acknowledged  to  be  a 
commandment  of  God,  a  law  of  God.  Now,  what  could, 
I  do  not  say  Christ-God,  but  a  prophet,  the  commonest 
teacher  do,  in  teaching  such  people,  if  he  did  not  des- 
troy the  law  which  had  already  determined  everything 
down  to  the  minutest  details  ? 

Like  all  other  prophets,  Christ  takes  out  of  what  men 
call  the  law  of  God  what  is  really  the  law  of  God,  the 
foundations,  rejects  everything  else,  and  with  these  foun- 
dations connects  his  revelation  of  the  eternal  law.  There 
is  no  need  of  destroying  everything ;  but  the  law  which 
is  regarded  as  equally  binding  in  everything  is  inevitably 
destroyed.  Christ  does  this,  and  he  is  accused  of  violat- 
ing what  is  regarded  as  the  law  of  God,  and  for  this  he  is 
executed.  But  his  teaching  remains  with  his  disciples, 
and  passes  into  another  circle  and  to  the  ages.  But  in 
the  other  circle  similar  strata,  interpretations,  and  expla- 
nations grow  up  on  tliis  new  teaching ;  again  there  is  a 
substitution  of  base  human  inventions  for  the  divine  reve- 
lation ;  instead  of.  And  God  said  to  Moses,  they  say,  It 
pleased  us  and  the  Holy  Ghost.  And  again  the  letter 
covers  the  spirit.  What  is  most  striking  is  this,  that 
Christ's  teaching  is  connected  with  that  whole  thorah,  in 
the  sense  of  the  written  law,  which  he  could  not  help  but 
reject.  This  thorah  is  acknowledged  to  be  a  production 
of  the  revelation  of  his  spirit  of  truth,  that  is  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  and   he    is    himself  caught  in  the    snare  of   his 


MY   RELIGION  61 

revelation,  and  the  whole  teaching  is  reduced  to 
nothing. 

So  this  is  the  reason  why,  after  eighteen  hundred  years, 
there  happened  with  me  the  strange  thing  that  I  had  to 
discover  the  meaning  of  Christ's  teaching,  as  something 
new. 

I  did  not  have  to  discover,  but  to  do  what  all  men 
have  done,  who  seek  God  and  his  law,  —  to  find  what  is 
the  eternal  law  of  God,  amidst  all  that  which  men  call 
by  that  name. 


VI. 

And  so,  when  I  understood  Christ's  law  as  Christ's  law, 
and  not  as  that  of  Moses  and  of  Christ,  and  understood 
that  precept  of  the  law  which  directly  denied  the  law  of 
Moses,  —  all  the  gospels,  instead  of  the  former  obscurity, 
disconnectedness,  contradictions,  united  for  me  into  one 
inseparable  whole,  and  amidst  them  was  segregated  the 
essence  of  the  whole  teaching,  expressed  in  the  simple, 
clear,  and  accessible  five  commandments  of  Christ  (Matt. 
V.  21-48),  of  which  I  had  not  known  anything  heretofore. 

All  the  gospels  speak  of  Christ's  commandments  and  of 
fulfilling  them.  All  the  theologians  speak  of  Christ's 
commandments ;  but  what  these  commandments  were,  I 
had  not  known  before.  It  seemed  to  me  that  Christ's 
commandment  consisted  in  loving  God  and  our  neighbour 
as  ourselves.  And  I  did  not  see  that  this  could  not  be 
Christ's  commandment,  because  it  was  a  commandment 
of  the  ancients  (Deut.  and  Lev.).  The  words  (Matt.  v. 
19),  Whosoever  therefore  shall  break  one  of  these  least 
commandments,  and  shall  teach  men  so,  he  shall  be  called 
the  least  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  —  I  referred  to  the 
commandments  of  Moses ;  and  it  never  occurred  to  me 
that  Christ's  new  commandments  were  clearly  and  defi- 
nitely expressed  in  Verses  21-48  of  Chap.  V.  of  Matthew. 
I  did  not  see  that  where  it  says,  You  have  been  told,  but 
I  say  unto  you,  there  were  expressed  the  new  definite 
commandments  of  Christ,  namely,  according  to  the  num- 
ber of  references  to  the  old  law  (counting  the  two  ref- 
erences   to    adultery    as  one),    five    new,    clear,  definite 

commandments  of  Christ. 

t>2 


MY    RELIGION  63 

The  beatitudes  and  their  uuinber  I  had  heard  and  seen 
mentioned  and  exphiined,  when  I  was  taught  rehgion  at 
school;  but  I  had  never  heard  of  Christ's  command- 
ments.    To  my  surprise,  I  had  to  discover  them. 

This  is  the  way  I  discovered  them.  In  Matthew  (v. 
21-26)  it  says:  Ye  have  heard  that  it  was  said  by  them 
of  old  time,  Thou  shalt  not  kill;  and  whosoever  shall 
kill  shall  be  in  danger  of  the  judgment  (Isaiah  xx.  13); 
But  I  say  unto  you,  That  whosoever  is  augry  with  his 
brother  without  a  cause  shall  be  in  danger  of  the  judg- 
ment :  and  whosoever  shall  say  to  his  brother,  Kaca,  shall 
be  in  danger  of  the  council:  but  whosoever  shall  say, 
Thou  fool,  shall  be  in  danger  of  hell  fire.  Therefore  if 
thou  bring  thy  gift  to  the  altar,  and  there  rememberest 
that  thy  brother  hath  aught  against  thee ;  Leave  there 
thy  gift  before  the  altar,  and  go  thy  way ;  first  be  recon- 
ciled to  thy  brother,  and  then  come  and  offer  thy  gift. 
Agree  with  thine  adversary  quickly,  while  thou  art  in  the 
way  with  him ;  lest  at  any  time  the  adversary  deliver 
thee  to  the  judge,  and  tlie  judge  deliver  thee  to  the  offi- 
cer, and  thou  be  cast  into  prison.  Verily  I  say  unto  thee, 
Thou  shalt  by  no  means  come  out  thence,  till  thou  hast 
paid  the  uttermost  farthing. 

When  I  understood  the  commandment  about  non- 
resistance  to  evil,  it  occurred  to  me  that  the  verses  about 
anger  must  have  a  similarly  clear  meaning,  which  is 
apphcable  to  life,  as  the  commandment  about  non-resist- 
ance to  evil.  The  meaning  which  I  formerly  ascribed  to 
these  words  was  this,  that  every  man  must  always  avoid 
anger  against  men,  must  never  use  curses,  and  must  live 
in  peace  with  all  men  without  exception ;  but  in  the  text 
there  was  an  expression  w^hich  excluded  this  meaning. 
It  says,  Be  not  angry  without  a  cause,  so  that  no  uncon- 
ditional peace  followed  from  this  precept.  This  expres- 
sion troubled  me.  To  clear  my  doubts,  I  turned  to  the 
commentaries  of  the  theologians ;  and,  to  my  surprise,  I 


64  MY   RELIGION 

found  that  the  interpretations  of  the  fathers  were  di- 
rected mainly  to  this,  when  anger  is  excusable,  and  when 
not.  All  the  interpreters  of  the  church,  putting  special 
emphasis  on  the  expression  without  a  cause,  explain  this 
passage  to  mean  that  one  must  not  without  a  cause  offend 
people,  or  use  curses,  but  that  anger  is  not  always  unjust, 
and  in  confirmation  of  this  interpretation  they  adduce 
examples  of  anger  in  the  apostles  and  the  saints.  I  could 
not  help  acknowledging  that  the  explanation  tbat  anger, 
according  to  their  expression,  was  not  forbidden  by  the 
word  of  God,  though  it  was  contrary  to  the  whole  mean- 
ing of  the  Gospel,  was  consistent,  and  had  its  foundation 
in  the  expression  without  a  cause,  which  stands  in  Verse 
22.  This  expression  changed  the  meaning  of  the  whole 
utterance. 

Be  not  angry  without  a  cause.  Christ  commands  us  to 
forgive  all  men,  to  forgive  without  end ;  he  forgives  him- 
self, and  forbids  Peter's  being  angry  with  Malchus,  when 
Peter  defends  his  teacher  who  is  being  led  to  the  place  of 
the  crucifixion,  consequently  not  without  a  cause.  And 
this  same  Christ  says,  instructing  all  men,  Be  not  angry 
without  a  cause,  and  so  permits  people  to  be  angry  for  a 
good  cause.  Christ  preaches  peace  to  all  simple  people, 
and  suddenly,  as  though  with  a  mental  reservation,  that 
this  does  not  refer  to  all  cases,  as  there  are  cases  when  one 
may  be  angry  with  a  brother,  he  puts  in  the  expression 
without  a  cause.  In  the  commentaries  it  is  explained 
that  there  is  a  seasonable  anger ;  but  who  is  the  judge,  I 
said,  of  when  it  is  seasonable  ?  I  have  never  yet  seen 
angry  men  who  did  not  consider  their  anger  seasonable. 
All  consider  their  anger  legitimate  and  useful.  This  ex- 
pression destroyed  the  whole  meaning  of  the  verse ;  but 
it  stood  in  Holy  Scripture,  and  I  could  not  throw  it  out. 
Tliis  expression  was  as  though  to  the  utterance,  Love  thy 
neighbour,  there  were  added,  Love  thy  good  neighbour,  or 
the  neighbour  whom  thou  hkest. 


MY    RELIGION  65 

The  whole  meaning  of  the  passage  was  for  me  destroyed 
by  the  expression  without  a  cause.  Even  so  the  verses 
about  being  reconciled  to  him  who  has  anything  against 
thee,  before  thou  prayest,  which  without  the  expression 
without  a  cause  would  have  a  direct,  obligatory  meaning, 
also  received  a  conditional  meaning. 

I  imagined  that  Christ  ought  to  forbid  all  anger,  all  ill- 
will,  and  that,  in  order  that  it  should  not  exist,  he  com- 
manded, Before  bringing  thy  gift  to  the  altar,  that  is, 
before  getting  into  communion  with  God,  thou  must  re- 
member whether  there  is  a  man  who  is  angry  with  thee. 
And  if  there  is  such  a  one,  without  a  cause  or  with  a  cause, 
go  and  be  reconciled  to  him,  and  then  only  bring  thy 
offering  or  pray.  Thus  it  seemed  to  me,  but  from  the 
interpretations  it  turned  out  that  this  passage  had  to  be 
taken  in  a  conditional  way. 

All  the  interpretations  explain  that  we  must  make 
peace  with  all  men ;  but  if  this  is  impossible  to  do  on 
account  of  the  corruption  of  men,  who  are  inimical  toward 
thee,  it  is  necessary  for  thee  to  be  reconciled  spiritually, 
in  thought :  and  then  the  enmity  of  the  others  toward 
thee  will  not  interfere  with  thy  prayer. 

Besides,  the  words.  Whosoever  shall  say,  Raca,  and, 
Thou  fool,  are  terribly  guilty,  always  seemed  strange  and 
obscure  to  me.  If  this  is  meant  as  a  prohibition  against 
cursing,  why  are  there  chosen  such  weak,  almost  innocu- 
ous words  ?  Then  again,  why  is  such  a  terrible  threat 
hurled  against  those  who  forget  themselves  with  such  a 
weak  word  as  Raca,  that  is,  insignificant  ?  All  that  was 
obscure. 

I  felt  that  there  was  here  the  same  kind  of  a  lack  of  com- 
prehension as  in  the  words.  Do  not  judge  ;  I  felt  that,  as  in 
the  other  interpretation,  everything  passed  here  from  what 
was  simple,  important,  definite,  practicable  into  a  hazy  and 
indifferent  sphere.  I  felt  that  Christ  could  not  have  com- 
prehended the  words,  Go  and  be  reconciled  to  him,  as  they 


66  MY    RELIGION 

interpret  it,  Be  reconciled  in  thought.  What  is  meant  by, 
Be  reconciled  in  thought  ?  I  thought  that  Christ  was 
saying  what  he  expressed  in  the  words  of  the  prophet,  I 
do  not  want  sacrifices,  but  compassion,  that  is,  love  for 
men.  And  so,  if  thou  wantest  to  please  God,  remember 
who  is  angry  with  thee,  before  praying,  in  the  morning 
and  in  the  evening,  at  mass  and  at  vigils ;  and  go  and 
arrange  it  in  such  a  way  that  he  may  not  be  angry  with 
thee,  and  then  pray,  if  thou  wantest. 

But,  in  thought !  I  felt  that  the  whole  interpretation, 
which  destroyed  the  direct  and  clear  meaning,  was  based 
on  the  expression  withottt  a  cause.  If  I  could  throw  it 
out,  the  meaning  would  be  clear ;  but  all  the  interpreta- 
tions were  against  my  way  of  understanding  it,  and  so 
was  the  canonical  Gospel  with  its  expression  without  a 
cause.  If  I  departed  from  this,  I  could  arbitrarily  depart 
in  another  direction,  and  others  could  do  the  same.  If  it 
were  not  for  this  word,  everything  would  be  clear.  And 
so  I  try  philologically  to  explain  this  expression  vnthout 
a  cause,  so  that  it  may  not  break  the  sense.  I  consult 
the  general  dictionary,  and  I  see  that  this  Greek  word  et/c?) 
means  witliotit  a  plan,  heedlessly  ;  I  try  to  give  it  a  signifi- 
cance which  would  not  do  violence  to  the  sense,  but 
evidently  the  word  gives  the  meaning  which  is  ascribed  to 
it.  I  consult  the  New  Testament  dictionary,  and  I  find 
the  meaning  which  is  given  to  it  here.  I  investigate  the 
context,  and  I  find  that  the  word  is  but  once  used  in  the 
Gospel,  namely  in  this  place.  In  the  epistles  it  is  used 
several  times.  In  1  Cor.  xv.  2  it  is  used  in  precisely  this 
sense.  Consequently  there  is  no  possibility  of  explaining 
it  otherwise,  and  I  must  assume  that  Christ  said,  Be  not 
angry  without  a  cause. 

I  must  confess  that  assuming  that  Christ-  could  in  this 
passage  have  used  such  indistinct  words,  making  it  possi- 
ble for  us  to  understand  them  in  such  a  way  that  nothing 
is  left  of  them,  was  the  same  as  renouncing  the  whole 


MY    RELIGION 


67 


Gospel.  One  last  hope  is  left:  I  will  try  to  find  out 
whether  this  word  is  to  be  found  in  all  the  texts.  I  in- 
vestigate the  variants.  I  consult  Griesbach,  who  gives  all 
the  variants,  that  is,  in  what  texts  and  in  what  fathers  a 
certain  expression  is  used.  I  consult  him,  and  am  at  once 
in  raptures,  for  I  find  that  there  are  variants  to  this  pas- 
sage. I  look  and  I  find  that  the  variants  all  refer  to  the 
expression  without. a  cause.  Tlie  majority  of  the  Gospel 
texts  and  quotations  have  not  the  expression  ivitho^it  a 
cause  at  all.  Consequently,  the  majority  understood  it  in 
the  same  way  as  I  understand  it.  1  consult  Tischendorf, 
and  the  word  is  wanting  in  the  oldest  text.  I  look  into 
Luther's  translation,  from  which  I  might  have  found  it 
out  in  the  shortest  way,  and  the  word  is  wanting  there, 
too. 

The  very  word  which  impaired  the  whole  meaning  of 
Christ's  teaching  is  an  interpolation  of  the  fifth  century, 
which  has  not  entered  into  the  best  texts  of  the  Gospel. 

A  man  was  found  who  put  in  this  word,  and  other 
men  were  found  who  approved  of  this  interpolation,  and 
explained  it. 

Christ  could  not  have  said  this  terrible  word,  and  he 
did  not  say  it,  and  that  first,  simple,  straight  meaning  of 
the  wliole  passage,  which  startled  me  and  which  startles 
everybody,  is  the  true  one. 

But  more  than  this  :  It  was  enough  for  me  to  under- 
stand that  Christ's  words  forbid  being  angry  with  anybody 
at  any  time,  in  order  that  the  prohibition,  which  had 
troubled  me  before,  of  using  the  words  Baca  and  fool 
should  also  receive  a  different  meaning,  and  should  not 
be  a  prohibition  against  using  curses.  The  strange  un- 
translated Hebrew  word  Baca  gave  me  the  new  sense. 
Baca  means  trampled  down,  destroyed,  non-existing  ;  the 
word  raca  is  very  common,  and  means  exception,  only  not. 
Baca  means  a  man  who  is  not  to  he  regarded  as  a  man. 
In  the  plural  the  word  rclcim    is  used  in   the  Book  of 


68  MY    RELIGION 

Judges  ix.  4,  where  it  means  lost.     So  it  is  this  word  that 
Christ  does  not  permit  us  to  use  of  any  one. 

Similarly  he  does  not  allow  us  to  use  the  other  word 
fool,  like  raca,  which,  as  it  were,  would  free  us  from  our 
human  obligations  to  our  neighbour.  We  are  angry  and 
do  evil  to  men,  and,  to  justify  ourselves,  we  say  that  he 
with  whom  we  are  angry  is  a  lost  or  foolish  man.  And 
so  it  is  these  two  words  that  Christ  tells  us  not  to  use  in 
respect  to  men  and  toward  men.  Christ  tells  us  that  we 
must  not  be  angry  with  any  one  and  justify  our  anger 
by  considering  another  person  lost  or  foolish. 

And  so,  in  place  of  the  hazy,  indefinite,  and  unimpor- 
tant expressions,  which  were  subject  to  interpretations 
and  arbitrariness,  there  was  disclosed  to  me,  from  Verse  21 
to  Verse  28,  Christ's  clear  and  definite  first  commandment : 
Live  in  peace  with  all  men,  and  never  consider  thy  anger 
against  people  just.  Consider  not  a  man  lost  or  foohsh, 
and  do  not  call  him  so  (Verse  22).  Never  consider  thy 
anger  as  being  with  a  cause,  and  never  consider  another 
man's  anger  against  thee  as  without  a  cause ;  and  so, 
if  there  is  a  man  who  is  angry  with  thee,  even  though  it 
be  without  a  cause,  go  to  him,  before  thy  prayer,  and 
destroy  this  hostile  feehng  (Verses  23  and  24).  Try  in 
advance  to  destroy  the  enmity  between  thee  and  other 
men,  so  that  the  enmity  may  not  flame  up  and  destroy 
thee  (Verses  25  and  26). 

Immediately  after  the  first  commandment  the  second, 
which  begins  with  a  reference  to  the  ancient  law,  was 
disclosed  to  me  with  the  same  clearness.  Matt.  v.  27-32 
says :  Ye  have  heard  that  it  was  said  by  them  of  old  time, 
Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery  (Ex.  xx.  14-28) :  But  I 
say  unto  you.  That  whosoever  looketh  on  a  woman  to 
lust  after  her  hath  committed  adultery  with  her  already 
in  his  heart.  And  if  thy  right  eye  offend  thee,  pluck  it 
out,  and  cast  it  from  thee  :  for  it  is  profitable  for  thee  that 
one  of  thy  members  should  perish,  and  not  that  thy  whole 


MY   RELIGION  69 

body  should  be  cast  into  hell.  And  if  thy  right  hand 
offend  thee,  cut  it  off,  and  cast  it  fiom  thee  :  for  it  is 
profitable  for  thee  that  one  of  thy  members  should  perish 
and  not  that  thy  whole  l)ody  should  be  cast  into  hell.  It 
hath  been  said.  Whosoever  shall  put  away  his  wife,  let 
him  give  her  a  writing  of  divorcement  (Deut.  xxiv.  1-32)  : 
But  I  say  unto  you.  That  whosoever  shall  put  away  his 
wife,  saving  for  the  cause  of  adultery,  causeth  her  to 
commit  adultery :  and  whosoever  shall  marry  her  that  is 
divorced  committeth  adultery. 

The  meaning  of  these  words  presented  itself  to  me  as 
follows :  a  man  must  not  even  admit  the  idea  that  he  can 
unite  with  another  woman  than  the  one  with  whom  he 
has  once  been  united,  and  he  can  never,  as  was  the  case 
according  to  the  law  of  Moses,  exchange  this  woman  for 
another. 

As  in  the  first  commandment  against  anger  the  advice 
is  given  that  this  anger  should  be  put  out  in  the  begin- 
ning, an  advice  which  is  elucidated  by  the  comparison 
with  a  man  who  is  led  to  the  judge,  even  so  here  Christ 
says  that  fornication  is  due  to  this,  that  women  and  men 
look  upon  one  another  as  upon  an  object  of  lust.  That 
this  may  not  be,  it  is  necessary  to  remove  everything  which 
can  provoke  lust,  and  to  avoid  all  that  which  provokes 
lust,  and,  having  united  with  the  wife,  under  no  condition 
to  abandon  her,  because  the  abandonment  of  wives  leads 
to  debauch.  The  abandoned  wives  tempt  other  men  and 
introduce  debauch  into  the  world. 

The  wisdom  of  this  commandment  startled  me.  All  the 
evil  between  men,  which  arose  from  the  sexual  relations, 
was  removed  by  it.  Knowing  that  the  enjoyment  of  the 
sexual  relations  leads  to  dissensions,  men  avoid  everything 
which  provokes  lust,  and,  knowing  that  the  law  of  man  is 
to  live  in  pairs,  they  unite  in  pairs,  never  under  any  con- 
dition violating  tliis  union,  and  all  the  evil  of  dissensions 
on  account  of  the  sexual  relations  is  destroyed,  in  that  there 


70  MY   RELIGION 

are  no  single  men  and  no  single  women  who  are  deprived 
of  the  marital  life. 

But  the  words  which  always  startled  me  in  the  read- 
ing of  the  sermon  on  the  mount,  Saving  for  the  cause  of 
adultery,  which  are  taken  to  mean  that  a  man  may  he 
divorced  from  his  wife  in  case  of  her  adultery,  now 
startled  me  more  than  ever. 

Not  to  speak  of  the  fact  that  there  would  be  something 
unworthy  in  the  form  itself  in  which  this  thought  was 
expressed,  that  side  by  side  with  what  by  their  significance 
are  the  profoundest  truths  of  the  sermon,  there  should, 
like  a  note  to  an  article  of  the  code  of  laws,  be  this 
strange  exception  to  the  general  rule,  this  exception 
itself  contradicted  the  fundamental  idea. 

I  consult. the  commentaries,  and  all  (John  Chrysostom, 
p.  365,  and  the  others),  even  the  learned  theological 
critics,  hke  Reuss,  acknowledge  that  these  words  mean 
that  Christ  permits  divorce  in  the  case  of  the  wife's 
adultery,  and  that  in  Chapter  XIX.,  in  Christ's  discourse, 
which  prohibits  divorce,  the  words,  Except  it  be  for 
adultery,  mean  the  same.  I  read  and  re-read  Verse  32, 
and  it  seems  to  me  that  this  cannot  mean  a  permission  to 
be  divorced.  To  verify  my  opinion,  I  consult  the  con- 
texts, and  I  find  in  Matt,  xix.,  Mark  x.,  Luke  xvi.,  in 
Paul's  First  Epistle  to  the  Corintliians  the  explanation 
of  the  same  doctrine  of  the  inseparableness  of  marriage, 
without  any  exception  whatever. 

In  Luke  xvi.  18  it  says.  Whosoever  putteth  away  his 
wife,  and  marrieth  another,  committeth  adultery  :  and  who- 
soever marrieth  her  that  is  put  away  from  her  husband 
committeth  adultery. 

In  Mark  x.  4-12  it  says,  Eor  the  hardness  of  your 
heart  he  wrote  you  this  precept.  But  from  the  begin- 
ning of  the  creation  God  made  them  male  and  female. 
For  this  cause  shall  a  man  leave  his  father  and  mother, 
and  cleave  to  his  wife ;  And   they  twain   shall  be  one 


MY   RELIGION  71 

flesh :  so  then  they  are  uo  more  twain  but  one  flesh. 
What  therefore  God  hath  joined  together  let  not  man  put 
asunder.  And  in  the  house  his  disciples  asked  him  again 
of  the  same  matter.  And  he  saith  unto  them,  Whosoever 
shall  put  away  his  wife,  and  marry  another,  committeth 
adultery  against  her.  And  if  a  woman  shall  put  away 
her  husband,  and  be  married  to  another,  she  committeth 
adultery. 

The  same  is  said  in  Matt.  xix.  4-9. 

In  Paul's  epistle,  1  Cor.  vii.  1-12,  the  idea  of  preventing 
debauch  is  developed  in  detail.  It  says  there  that  hus- 
band and  wife,  having  once  been  united,  should  not  put 
one  another  away,  and  should  satisfy  one  another  in 
the  sexual  relation ;  and  just  as  directly  does  it  say  that 
one  of  the  married  pair  can  under  no  condition  put  away 
the  other  for  the  purpose  of  having  relations  with  a  third 
party. 

According  to  Mark,  Luke,  and  Paul's  epistle  divorce  is 
not  permitted.  From  the  sense  of  the  interpretation  that 
husband  and  wife  are  one  body  united  by  God,  an  inter- 
pretation which  is  repeated  in  two  gospels,  it  follows  that 
divorce  is  not  permitted.  From  the  meaning  of  the  whole 
teaching  of  Christ,  who  enjoined  men  to  forgive  all,  not 
excluding  even  the  fallen  wife,  it  follows  that  divorce  is 
not  permitted.  From  the  sense  of  the  whole  passage, 
which  explains  that  the  putting  away  of  the  wife,  especially 
one  of  loose  morals,  leads  to  debauch,  it  follows  that 
divorce  is  not  permitted. 

On  what,  then,  is  the  interpretation  based  that  divorce 
is  permitted  in  the  case  of  the  wife's  adultery  ?  On  those 
words  of  Verse  32  of  Chapter  V.,  which  startled  me  so 
much.  These  words  are  interpreted  by  all  to  mean  that 
Christ  permits  divorce  in  the  case  of  the  wife's  adultery, 
and  these  very  words  are  repeated  in  Chapter  XIX.  by 
many  texts  of  the  gospels  and  by  many  fathers  instead 
of  the  words,  Except  it  be  for  adultery. 


72  MY   RELIGION 

If 

I  began  once  more  to  read  these  words,  but  for  a  long 
time  could  not  understand  them.  I  saw  that  there  must 
be  some  error  of  translation  and  interpretation  here,  but 
I  was  unable  for  a  long  time  to  discover  where  it  was. 
The  error  was  obvious.  In  opposing  his  commandment 
to  that  of  Moses,  according  to  which  any  man,  as  it  says 
there,  hating  his  wife,  could  put  her  away,  and  give  her  a 
writing  of  divorcement,  Christ  says,  I  say  unto  you, 
That  whosoever  shall  put  away  his  wife,  saving  for  the 
cause  of  adultery,  causeth  her  to  commit  adultery.  In 
these  words  there  is  nothing  which  is  opposed,  and  there 
is  not  even  any  definition  whether  it  is  allowable  to  be 
divorced,  or  not.  All  it  says  is,  that  the  putting  away 
of  the  wife  causes  her  to  commit  adultery. 

Suddenly  an  exception  is  made  here  in  the  case  of  the 
wife  who  is  guilty  of  adultery.  This  exception,  which 
has  reference  to  the  woman  guilty  of  adultery,  when  the 
husband  is  under  discussion,  is  in  general  strange  and 
unexpected,  and  in  this  place  simply  stupid,  because  it 
destroys  even  that  doubtful  sense  which  there  was  in 
these  words.  It  says  that  the  putting  away  of  the  wife 
causes  her  to  commit  adultery,  and  then  it  permits  the 
putting  away  of  a  wife  who  is  guilty  of  adultery,  as  though 
a  wife  who  is  guilty  of  adultery  will  not  commit  adul- 
tery. 

But  more  than  this :  When  I  analyzed  this  passage 
more  attentively,  I  saw  that  it  had  even  no  grammatical 
sense.  It  says :  Whosoever  shall  put  away  his  wife, 
saving  for  the  cause  of  adultery,  causeth  her  to  commit 
adultery;  and  the  sentence  is  ended.  It  speaks  of  the 
husband,  saying  that  in  putting  away  his  wife  he  causes 
her  to  commit  adultery.  What  has  saving  for  the  cause 
of  adultery  to  do  with  it  ?  If  it  said  that  the  husband 
who  puts  away  his  wife,  except  for  her  adultery,  commits 
adultery,  the  sentence  would  be  correct.  But  as  it  is,  for 
the  subject  husband,  who  is  getting  divorced,  there  is  no 


MY   KELIGION  73 

other  predicate  than  causeth.  How  can  we  refer  saving 
for  the  cause  of  adultery  to  this  predicate  ?  You  cannot 
cause,  saving  for  the  cause  of  adultery  of  the  wife.  Even 
if  to  the  words,  Saving  for  the  cause  of  adultery,  there 
were  added  the  words  of  the  wife,  or  her,  which  are  not 
added,  these  words  could  not  be  referred  to  the  predi- 
cate causeth.  These  words,  according  to  the  accepted 
interpretation,  refer  to  the  predicate ;  the  main  predicate 
is  causeth.  What,  then,  has  saving  for  the  cause  of  adul- 
tery to  do  here  ?  Whether  with  the  cause  of  adultery,  or 
without  it,  the  husband,  in  putting  her  away,  causeth  her 
to  commit  adultery.  This  is  an  expression  like  the  follow- 
ing :  he  who  deprives  his  son  of  sustenance,  saving  for  the 
cause  of  cruelty,  causes  him  to  be  cruel.  This  expression 
can  obviously  not  have  the  meaning  that  the  father  can 
deprive  his  son  of  sustenance,  if  the  son  is  cruel.  If  it 
makes  any  sense  at  all,  it  means  this,  that  the  father,  de- 
priving his  son  of  sustenance,  in  addition  to  his  own  guilt 
of  cruelty,  causes  also  his  son  to  be  cruel.  Even  so  the 
evangelical  expression  would  have  sense  if,  instead  of 
the  words.  Saving  for  the  cause  of  adultery,  we  had.  For 
the  cause  of  lechery,  debauchery,  or  something  similar, 
which  does  not  express  an  act,  but  a  property. 

And  I  asked  myself.  Does  it  not  say  here  simply  that 
in  getting  a  divorce  a  man,  in  addition  to  being  himself 
guilty  of  adultery  (for  a  man  gets  a  divorce  in  oi'der  that 
he  may  marry  another  woman),  causes  his  v^ife  also  to 
commit  adultery  ?  If  the  word  adultery  in  the  text  could 
be  rendered  by  such  words  as  to  give  it  the  meaning 
of  debauch,  the  meaning  would  be  clear. 

And  there  was  repeated  what  had  so  frequently  hap- 
pened to  me.  The  text  confirmed  my  supposition,  so  that 
there  could  not  even  be  any  doubt. 

The  first  thing  that  startled  me  in  reading  the  text  was 
this,  that  the  word  iropveia,  which  is  translated  by  the 
same  word  adultery,  just  like  the  word  fioixao-OaL,  is  in 


74  MY    RELIGION 

• 

reality  an  entirely  different  word.  But,  perhaps,  these 
words  are  synonyms,  or  in  the  gospels  one  word  may  be 
used  for  the  other.  I  consult  all  the  dictionaries,  the 
general  and  the  New  Testament  dictionaries,  and  I  see 
that  the  word  iropveCa,  which  corresponds  to  the  Hebrew 
m^T,  the  Latin  fornicatio  [as  which  it  is  given  in  the 
King  James  Bible],  the  German  Hurerei,  the  Kussian 
rasputstvo,  has  a  most  definite  meaning,  and  has  never, 
in  any  dictionary,  meant,  and  could  not  mean,  the  act  of 
adultery,  adidtere,  Ehebrucli,  as  which  it  is  translated.  It 
means  a  vicious  condition  or  property,  but  not  an  act,  and 
cannot  be  translated  by  adultery.  More  than  this  :  I  see 
that  the  word,  ad/ultery,  to  commit  adultery,  is  everywhere 
in  the  gospels  and  even  in  these  verses  designated  by 
another  word,  ^oi')(^dai.  All  I  had  to  do  was  to  correct 
this  obviously  intentional  mistranslation  in  order  that  the 
meaning  ascribed  by  the  commentators  to  this  passage 
and  to  the  context  of  Chap.  XIX.  should  become  entirely 
impossible,  and  that  the  meaning  which  makes  the  word 
TTopveta  refer  to  the  husband  should  become  indubitable. 

The  translation  which  any  man  who  knows  Greek 
would  make  would  be  the  following  :  Tra/se/cro?  besides, 
\6yov  the  guilt,  7ropveia<i  of  fornication,  Trotel  causes, 
avT-qv  her,  ^oi')(^aa6ai  to  commit  adultery,  and  get  word 
for  word.  He  who  gets  divorced  from  his  wife,  besides 
the  guilt  of  fornication,  causes  her  to  commit  adultery. 

The  same  sense  is  got  from  Chap.  XIX.  We  need  only 
correct  the  wrong  translation  of  both  the  word  iropveia 
and  the  preposition  iiri,  which  is  translated  by  for,  and 
instead  of  adultery  put  the  word  fornication,  and  instead 
of  for  put  for  the  sake  of,  and  it  becomes  clear  that  the 
words  d  /xrj  eirl  iropveCa  cannot  refer  to  the  wife.  Thus 
the  words  •jrapeKro^  \6yov  iropveia'i  can  mean  nothing  but 
hesides  the  guilt  of  fJie  Jiushand's  fornication,  just  as  the 
words  €i  /i77  eVt  iropveia,  which  are  giveu  in  Chap.  XIX., 
cannot  refer  to-  anything  but  the  husband's  fornication, 


MY   RELIGION  75 

It  says,  el  fir)  iirl  iropveia,  word  for  word,  If  not  for  the 
sake  of  fornication,  and  not  for  fornication.  The  sense 
we  get  is,  that  Christ,  replying  in  this  place  to  the  thought 
of  the  Pharisees,  who  imagined  that  a  man  did  not  commit 
adultery  if  he  left  his  wife,  not  in  order  to  fornicate,  but 
to  live  in  wedlock  with  another  woman,  says  that  it  is 
none  the  less  adultery.  Thus  we  get  a  simple  meaning, 
which  is  in  accord  with  the  whole  teaching,  with  the 
words  with  wliich  i^  is  connected,  and  with  grammar  and 
logic. 

This  simple,  clear  meaning,  which  results  from  the 
words  themselves  and  from  the  whole  teaching,  I  had  to 
discover  after  the  greatest  labour.  Indeed,  read  these 
words  in  German,  in  French,  where  it  says  directly  four 
cause  cVinfidt'lite,  or  It  moins  que  cela  ne  soit  pour  cause 
d'infidelite,  and  guess  that  it  means  something  entirely 
different.  The  word  7rap€/cr6<i,  which  according  to  all  the 
dictionaries  means  excepte,  atisge7iommen,  except,  is  trans- 
lated by  a  whole  clause,  ^c  moins  que  cela  ne  soit.  The 
word  TTopveia  is  translated  infidelite,  EhchrucJi,  adultery 
\hvit  fornication  in  the  King  James  Bible].  And  on  this 
intentional  distortion  of  the  text  they  base  the  interpreta- 
tion which  violates  the  moral,  and  religious,  and  grammat- 
ical, and  logical  sense  of  Christ's  words. 

Again  there  was  confirmed  for  me  that  terrible  and  joy- 
ous truth  that  the  meaning  of  Christ's  teaching  is  simple 
and  clear,  that  its  precepts  are  important  and  determined, 
but  that  its  interpretations,  which  are  based  on  the  desire 
to  justify  the  existing  evil,  have  so  obscured  it  that  it  can 
be  discovered  only  with  an  effort.  It  became  clear  to  me 
that  if  the  gospels  were  discovered  half  burned  or  effaced, 
it  would  be  easier  to  reconstruct  their  meaning  than  is  the 
case  at  present,  when  they  have  been  touched  by  the  un- 
scrupulous interpretations,  whose  direct  purpose  it  is  to 
pervert  and  conceal  the  meaning  of  the  teaching.  In  this 
case  it  is  even  more  obvious  than  in  the  former  how  the 


76  MY    RELIGION 

special  purpose  of  justifying  the  divorce  of  some  John 
the  Terrible  served  as  a  pretext  for  oLscuriug  the  whole 
doctrine  of  marriage. 

We  need  only  reject  the  interpretations,  and,  instead  of 
what  is  hazy  and  indefinite,  we  get  the  definite  and  clear 
second  commandment  of  Christ. 

Make  no  sport  of  the  lust  of  sexual  relations ;  every 
man  who  is  not  a  eunuch,  that  is,  who  is  in  need  of  sexual 
relations,  should  have  a  wife,  and  let  ^  man  have  one  wife, 
and  a  woman  have  one  husband,  and  under  no  considera- 
tion violate  the  sexual  union  between  yourselves. 

Immediately  after  the  second  commandment  w^e  have 
again  a  reference  to  the  ancient  law,  and  the  third  com- 
mandment is  expounded.  Matt.  v.  33-37 :  Again,  ye 
have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said  by  them  of  old  time, 
Thou  shalt  not  forswear  thyself,  but  shalt  perform  unto 
the  Lord  thine  oaths  (Lev.  xix.  12;  Deut.  xxiii.  21): 
But  I  say  unto  you,  swear  not  at  all ;  neither  by  heaven  ; 
for  it  is  God's  throne :  nor  by  the  earth  ;  for  it  is  his  foot- 
stool :  neither  by  Jerusalem ;  for  it  is  the  city  of  the  great 
King.  Neither  shalt  thou  swear  by  thy  head,  because 
thou  canst  not  make  one  hair  white  or  black;  But  let 
your  communication  be,  Yea,  yea ;  Nay,  nay  :  for  whatso- 
ever is  more  than  these  cometh  of  evil. 

This  passage  used  to  trouble  me  very  much  with  my 
former  readings.  It  troubled  me,  not  by  its  obscurity,  as 
in  the  case  of  the  passage  on  the  divorce,  not  by  its  con- 
tradictions with  other  passages,  like  the  permission  for 
anger  not  without  cause,  not  by  the  diHiculty  of  exe- 
cution, like  the  passage  about  turning  the  other  cheek : 
it  troubled  me,  on  the  contrary,  by  its  clearness,  simplic- 
ity, and  ease.  By  the  side  of  the  rules,  whose  depth  and 
significance  frightened  and  aft'ected  me,  there  suddenly 
stood  such  a  useless,  frivolous,  easy  rule,  which  was  of  no 
consequence,  either  for  me  or  for  others.  I  never  swore 
by  Jerusalem,  or  by  God,  or  by  anything  else,  even  before 


MY    RELIGION  77 

this,  and  that  never  gave  me  any  trouble.  Besides,  it 
seemed  to  me  that,  whether  I  should  swear  or  not,  that 
could  be  of  no  importance.  Wisliiug  to  find  an  explana- 
tion of  this  rule,  which  troubled  me  by  its  ease,  I  turned 
to  the  commentaries.  In  this  case  the  commentators 
helped  me.  All  the  commentators  see  in  these  words  a 
confirmation  of  the  third  commandment  of  Moses,  which 
is,  that  we  should  not  swear  by  anything  divine.  They 
explain  these  words  by  saying  that  Christ,  like  Moses,  for- 
bids us  to  use  the  name  of  God  in  vain.  In  addition  to 
this,  the  commentators  explain  that  this  rule  of  Christ 
about  not  swearing  is  not  always  obligatory  and  in  no  way 
refers  to  that  oath  which  every  citizen  swears  to  the  powers 
that  be.  And  they  pick  out  texts  of  Holy  Scripture,  not 
in  order  to  confirm  the  direct  meaning  of  Christ's  precept, 
but  in  order  to  prove  that  it  is  possible  and  necessary  not 
to  execute  it. 

They  say  that  Christ  himself  confirmed  the  oath  in 
court,  when  to  the  words  of  the  high  priest,  I  adjure 
thee  by  the  living  God,  he  replied.  Thou  hast  said  ;  they 
say  that  Paul  the  apostle  invokes  God  to  testify  to  the 
truth  of  his  words,  which  is  obviously  the  same  oath ; 
they  say  that  oaths  were  prescribed  by  Moses'  law,  and 
that  the  Lord  did  not  abolish  them  ;  they  say  that  all  that 
is  abohshed  is  the  frivolous,  Pharisaically  hypocritical 
oaths. 

When  I  comprehended  the  meaning  and  the  aim  of  all 
these  explanations,  I  saw  that  Christ's  precept  about  the 
oath  was  not  at  all  so  insignificant,  simple,  and  unim- 
portant as  it  had  seemed  to  me,  when  I  had  not  included 
the  political  oath  among  the  number  prohibited  by  Christ. 

I  asked  myself:  Does  it  not  say  here  that  even  that 
oath  is  forbidden  which  the  church  commentators  have 
so  cautiously  excluded  ?  Does  not  the  prohibition  cover 
the  oath  without  which  the  division  of  men  iuto  countries 
is  impossible,  or  the  military  cast  ?     The  soldiers,  those 


78  MY   RELIGION 

men  who  commit  all  violence,  call  themselves  "  the  oath," 
If  I  asked  the  grenadier  how  he  solved  the  contradiction 
between  the  Gospel  and  the  Military  Eegiilation,  he  would 
tell  me  that  he  swore  an  oath,  that  is,  swore  on  the  Gos- 
pel. All  the  military  men  have  given  me  such  answers. 
This  oath  is  just  as  necessary  for  the  formation  of  that 
terrible  evil  which  produces  violence  and  war,  so  that  in 
France,  where  Christianity  is  denied,  they  still  stick 
to  the  oath. 

Indeed,  if  Christ  had  not  said  so,  he  ought  to  have  said 
so.  He  came  to  destroy  the  evil,  and  did  not  destroy  the 
oath !  What  an  enormous  evil  is  still  left  in  the  world  ! 
Perhaps,  they  will  say,  this  evil  was  not  so  great  in  the 
time  of  Christ.  But  that  is  not  true ;  Epictetus,  Seneca, 
had  said  that  we  must  not  swear  to  any  one  ;  this  rule 
is  also  in  the  laws  of  Manu.  How  can  I  say  that  Christ 
did  not  see  this  evil,  especially  since  he  has  said  so  openly, 
clearly,  and  in  detail  ? 

He  said.  Do  not  swear  at  all.  This  expression  is  as 
simple,  clear,  and  indubitable  as  the  words.  Do  not  judge, 
and  do  not  condemn,  and  is  as  little  subject  to  misinter- 
pretations, the  more  so  since  at  the  end  it  adds  that  every- 
thing which  will  be  demanded  of  thee  beyond  Yes  and 
No  is  from  the  principle  of  evil. 

If  Christ's  teaching  consists  in  doing  the  will  of  God, 
how  can  a  man  swear  that  he  will  do  the  will  of  man  ? 
The  will  of  God  may  not  coincide  with  the  will  of  man. 
Christ  says  this  very  thing  in  this  place.  He  says.  Do 
not  swear  by  thy  head,  for  not  only  is  thy  head  not  thine, 
but  every  hair  upon  it  is  in  the  power  of  God.  The  same 
is  said  in  the  Epistle  of  James. 

At  the  end  of  his  epistle,  as  though  in  conclusion  of  all, 
Apostle  James  says  (v.  12),  But  above  all  things,  my 
brethren,  swear  not,  neither  by  heaven,  neither  by  the 
earth,  neither  by  any  other  oath  :  but  let  your  yea  be  yea; 
and  your  nay,  nay ;  lest  ye  fall  into  condemnation. 


MY    RELIGION  79 

The  apostle  says  distinctly  why  we  should  not  swear ; 
the  oath  does  not  seem  criminal  in  itself,  but  from  it  men 
fall  into  condemnation,  and  so,  Do  not  swear  at  all.  How 
can  that  which  has  been  said  by  Christ  and  by  the 
apostle  be  expressed  more  clearly  ? 

But  I  was  so  mixed  up  that  I  for  a  long  time  asked 
myself  in  surprise,  Does  it  really  mean  what  it  does  ? 
For  do  we  not  all  swear  by  the  Gospel  ?     It  cannot  be. 

I  had  already  read  the  commentaries,  and  I  knew  how 
the  impossible  was  done. 

What  had  happened  in  explaining  the  words.  Do  not 
judge,  be  not  angry  with  any  man,  do  not  sever  the  union 
between  man  and  wife,  was  the  case  here  too.  We  have 
estabhshed  our  order  of  things,  we  love  it  and  wish  to 
consider  it  holy.  There  comes  Christ,  whom  we  consider 
to  be  God,  and  he  says  that  this  our  order  of  things  is  not 
good.  We  call  him  God  and  do  not  wish  to  renounce  our 
order  of  things.  What  shall  we  do  ?  Where  possible  we 
will  put  in  the  expression  without  a  cause,  and  reduce  the 
rule  about  anger  to  nothing ;  where  possible,  we  will,  like 
the  most  unscrupulous  evil  judges,  so  misinterpret  the 
meaning  of  the  article  of  the  law  that  the  very  opposite 
shall  result :  so  that,  instead  of  saying  that  you  must  not 
be  divorced,  it  may  say  that  you  may ;  and  where  it  is 
not  possible  to  misinterpret,  as  in  the  case  of  the  words. 
Do  not  judge  and  do  not  condemn,  do  not  swear  at  all, 
let  us  boldly  act  contrary  to  the  teaching,  affirming  that 
we  are  following  it.  Indeed,  the  chief  obstacle  toward 
the  comprehension  of  the  fact  that  the  Gospel  forbids 
every  oath  is  this,  that  the  pseudo-Christian  teachers 
with  extraordinary  daring  compel  men  to  swear  on  the 
Gospel  and  by  the  Gospel,  that  is,  compel  them  to  do 
what  is  contrary  to  the  Gospel. 

How  can  it  occur  to  a  man,  who  is  made  to  swear  by 
the  Gospel  and  the  cross,  that  the  cross  is  holy  for  the 
very  reason  that  on  it  they  crucified  him  who  forbids  us 


80 


MY    RELIGION 


to  swear,  and  that  he  who  is  pronouncing  the  oath  is  per- 
haps kissing  as  a  holy  thing  that  very  place  where  it  says 
clearly  and  definitely,  Swear  not  at  all. 

But  I  was  not  longer  troubled  by  this  boldness.  I  saw 
clearly  that  in  Verses  33-37  there  was  expressed  the  clear, 
definite,  practicable  third  commandment.  Never  swear  to 
any  one  about  anything.  Every  oath  is  extorted  by  peo- 
ple for  evil. 

Immediately  after  this  third  commandment  we  find 
the  fourth  reference,  and  the  fourth  commandment  is 
expounded.  Matt.  v.  38-42  ;  Luke  vi.  29,  30 :  Ye 
have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said,  An  eye  for  an  eye,  and 
a  tooth  for  a  tooth :  But  I  say  unto  you.  That  ye  resist 
not  evil :  but  whosoever  shall  smite  thee  on  thy  right 
cheek,  turn  to  him  the  other  also.  And  if  any  man  will 
sue  thee  at  the  law,  and  take  away  thy  coat,  let  him  have 
thy  cloak  also.  And  whosoever  shall  compel  thee  to  go  a 
mile,  go  with  him  twain.  Give  to  him  that  asketh  thee, 
and  from  him  that  would  borrow  of  thee,  turn  not  thou 
away. 

I  have  already  said  what  definite,  direct  meeting  these 
words  have,  and  how  we  have  no  reason  to  explain  them 
allegorically.  The  interpretations  of  these  words,  from 
John  Chrysostom  to  our  time,  are  truly  wonderful.  Every- 
body likes  these  words,  and  all  of  them  utter  profound 
reflections  concerning  them,  except  the  one  that  these 
words  have  the  meaning  which  they  really  have. 

The  church  commentators,  not  in  the  least  embarrassed 
by  the  authority  of  him  whom  they  recognize  as  God, 
most  calmly  hmit  the  meaning  of  his  words.  They  say : 
"  It  is  self-understood  that  all  these  commandments  about 
enduring  insults,  about  renouncing  retaliation,  being  di- 
rected against  the  Jewish  love  of  revenge,  do  not  exclude 
the  social  measures  for  the  limitation  of  evil  and  for  the 
punishment  of  those  who  commit  evil,  not  even  the  pri- 
vate, personal  efforts  and  cares  of  each  man  concerning 


MY    RELIGION  81 

the  inviolability  of  truth,  the  correction  of  offenders,  the 
restraining  of  the  evil-niiuded  from  doing  harm  ;  for  else 
the  spiritual  laws  of  the  Saviour  would  in  Jewish  fashion 
turn  into  a  letter,  which  might  serve  for  the  success  of 
evil  and  the  suppression  of  virtue.  The  love  of  a  Chris- 
tian must  be  like  the  love  of  God,  but  the  love  of  God 
limits  and  punishes  evil  in  proportion  as  it  remains  more 
or  less  harmless  for  the  glory  of  God  and  the  salvation  of 
our  neighbour ;  contrariwise,  it  is  necessary  to  limit  and 
punish  evil,  a  duty  which  is  especially  imposed  upon  the 
authorities."  (The  Interpretation  of  the  Gospel,  by  Archi- 
mandrite Mikhail,  all  based  on  the  interpretation  by  the 
holy  fathers.) 

The  learned  and  freethinking  Christians  are  just  as 
little  embarrassed  by  the  meaning  of  Christ's  words,  and 
correct  him.  They  say  that  these  are  very  exalted 
utterances,  but  devoid  of  every  possibility  of  application 
to  life,  because  the  application  of  the  rule  of  non-resist- 
ance to  evil  destroys  all  that  order  of  things  which  we 
have  arranged  so  well :  so  speak  Eenan,  Strauss,  and  all 
the  freethinking  commentators. 

But  we  need  only  bear  ourselves  toward  the  words  of 
Christ  as  we  bear  ourselves  toward  the  words  of  any  man 
we  meet,  when  he  speaks  to  us,  that  is,  assume  that  he 
means  what  he  says,  and  the  necessity  of  all  profound 
reflections  is  at  once  removed,  Christ  says,  I  find  that 
the  method  for  making  your  life  secure  is  very  stupid  and 
bad.  I  propose  an  entirely  different  one  to  you,  — 
namely,  this ;  and  he  goes  on  to  utter  his  words  from 
Verse  38  to  Verse  42,  One  would  think  that  before  cor- 
recting these  words  it  would  be  necessary  to  understand 
them ;  but  this  no  one  wants  to  do,  for  every  one  decides 
in  advance  that  the  order  in  which  we  live  and  which  is 
impaired  by  these  words  is  a  sacred  law  of  humanity. 

I  did  not  consider  our  life  either  good  or  sacred,  and  so 
I  understood  this  commandment  before  the  rest.     And 


82  MY    RELIGION 

when  I  understood  them  just  as  they  are  said,  T  was 
struck  by  their  truth,  accuracy,  and  clearness.  Christ 
says,  You  want  to  destroy  evil  by  evil.  That  is  not  sen- 
sible. That  there  be  no  eAdl,  do  no  evil.  Then  Christ 
counts  up  all  the  cases  in  which  we  are  wont  to  do  evil, 
and  says  that  in  these  cases  we  must  not  do  so. 

This  fourth  commandment  of  Christ  was  the  first  which 
I  comprehended,  and  which  opened  to  me  the  meaning  of 
all  the  rest.  The  fourth  simple,  clear,  practicable  com- 
mandment says.  Never  resist  evil  with  force ;  never 
employ  force  in  answer  to  force :  if  they  beat  thee,  suffer ; 
if  they  take  away  from  thee,  give  it ;  if  they  make  thee 
work,  work ;  if  they  wish  to  take  from  thee  what  thou 
considerest  thy  own,  give  it  to  them. 

Upon  this  fourth  commandment  follows  the  fifth  refer- 
ence and  the  fifth  commandment.  Matt.  v.  43-48 :  Ye 
have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said,  Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbour,  and  hate  thine  enemy  (Lev.  xix.  17,  18):  But 
I  say  unto  you,  Love  your  enemies,  bless  them  that  curse 
you,  do  good  to  them  that  hate  you,  and  pray  for  them 
which  despitefully  use  you,  and  persecute  you ;  that  ye 
may  be  the  children  of  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven : 
for  he  maketh  his  sun  to  rise  on  the  evil  and  on  the  good, 
and  sendeth  rain  on  the  just  and  on  the  unjust.  For  if 
ye  love  them  which  love  you,  what  reward  have  ye  ?  do 
not  even  the  publicans  the  same  ?  And  if  ye  salute  your 
brethren  only,  what  do  ye  more  than  others  ?  do  not  even 
the  publicans  so  ?  Be  ye  therefore  perfect,  even  as  your 
Father  which  is  in  heaven  is  perfect. 

Formerly  these  words  used  to  present  themselves  to  me 
as  an  elucidation,  complement,  and  confirmation,  I  shall 
even  say  exaggeration  of  the  words  about  non-resistance 
to  evil.  But,  having  found  a  simple,  applicable,  definite 
meaning  for  every  passage  which  begins  with  a  reference 
to  the  ancient  law,  I  anticipated  a  similar  meaning  for 
the  present  passage.     After  each  reference  the  command- 


MY   RELIGION  83 

ment  was  expounded,  and  every  verse  of  the  command- 
ment had  a  meaning,  and  could  not  be  thrown  out,  and  so 
the  same  was  to  be  expected  here. 

The  last  words,  which  are  repeated  in  Luke,  about  this, 
that  God  makes  no  distinction  between  men  and  gives  his 
good  to  all  alike,  and  that,  therefore,  you  *nust  be  like 
God,  making  no  distinction  between  men,  and  must  not  do 
as  the  Gentiles  do,  but  must  love  all  and  do  good  to  all 
alike,  —  these  words  were  clear :  they  presented  them- 
selves to  me  as  a  confirmation  and  explanation  of  some 
clear  rule  ;  but  wherein  this  rule  consisted,  I  was  for  a 
long  time  unable  to  comprehend. 

To  love  our  enemies  ?  That  was  something  impossible. 
That  was  one  of  those  beautiful  expressioDS  upon  which 
one  cannot  look  otherwise  than  as  upon  an  indication  of 
an  inaccessible  moral  ideal.  That  was  either  too  much, 
or  nothing.  It  is  possible  not  to  harm  our  enemy,  but  to 
love  him,  —  never.  Christ  could  not  have  prescribed  the 
impossible.  Besides,  in  the  very  first  words,  m  the  refer- 
ence to  the  law  of  the  ancients.  You  are  told.  Hate 
thine  enemy,  there  was  something  doubtful.  In  all  the 
former  passages  Christ  quoted  the  actual,  original  words  of 
the  law  of  Moses ;  but  here  he  adduces  words  which  were 
never  said.     It  is  as  though  he  calumniated  the  law. 

The  commentaries,  as  in  all  my  former  doubts,  ex- 
plained nothing  to  me.  In  all  the  commentaries  they 
admit  that  the  words.  You  are  told,  Hate  thine  enemy,  are 
not  to  be  found  in  the  law  of  Moses,  but  no  explanation 
is  given  of  this  incorrectly  quoted  passage  from  the  law. 
They  speak  of  how  difficult  it  is  to  love  our  enemies,  — 
evil  men,  —  and  generally  they  attempt  corrections  of  the 
words  of  Christ ;  they  say  that  it  is  impossible  to  love  our 
enemies,  but  that  it  is  possible  not  to  wish  them  any  evil 
or  do  them  any  harm.  At  the  same  time  they  impress 
upon  us  the  permission  and  necessity  of  arraigning,  that 
is,  resisting  evil ;  they  speak  of  various  degrees  of  attain- 


84  MY    RELIGION 

ing  this  virtue,  so  that  from  the  interpretations  of  the  church 
the  final  deduction  is  that  Christ  for  some  unknown  reason 
misquoted  the  words  of  the  law  of  Moses  and  uttered  many- 
beautiful,  but  really  frivolous  and  inapplicable,  words. 

It  seemed  to  me  that  that  could  not  be  so.  There  ought 
to  be  here  a  <jlear  and  definite  meaning,  such  as  is  found 
in  the  first  four  commandments.  In  order  to  understand 
this  meaning,  I  first  tried  to  understand  the  meaning  of 
the  words  of  the  incorrect  reference  to  the  law,  You  are 
told.  Hate  thine  enemy.  There  is  some  reason  why  Christ 
with  every  rule  quotes  the  words  of  the  law.  Do  not  kill, 
do  not  commit  adultery,  and  so  forth,  and  to  these  words 
opposes  his  own  teaching.  If  we  do  not  understand  what 
he  meant  by  the  words  of  the  law  quoted  by  him,  it  is 
impossible  to  understand  what  it  is  he  prescribes.  In  the 
commentaries  it  says  outright  (nor  can  they  help  saying 
it)  that  he  quotes  words  that  were  not  in  the  law,  but 
no  explanation  is  given  why  he  does  so,  and  what  this 
incorrect  quotation  means. 

It  seemed  to  me  that  first  of  all  it  ought  to  be  explained 
what  Christ  could  have  meant  when  he  quoted  the  words 
which  were  not  in  the  law.  I  asked  myself,  What  can 
the  words  mean  which  are  incorrectly  quoted  by  Christ 
from  the  law  ?  In  all  the  former  references  to  the  law, 
Christ  quoted  only  the  mere  wording  of  the  ancient  law, 
as.  Kill  not.  Commit  no  adultery.  Keep  thy  oaths,  A  tooth 
for  a  tooth,  and  on  the  ground  of  this  one  precept  he  ex- 
pounded the  corresponding  doctrine.  But  here  two  oppos- 
ing precepts  are  quoted.  You  have  been  told.  Love  thy 
neighbour  and  hate  thine  enemy,  so  that  it  is  evident  that 
the  distinction  itself  between  the  two  precepts  of  the  old 
law  concerning  the  neighbour  and  the  enemy  is  to  serve 
as  the  basis  of  the  new  law.  In  order  that  I  might 
understand  more  clearly  wherein  this  distinction  lay,  I 
asked  myself.  What  do  the  words  neighbour  and  enemy 
mean  in  the  Gospel  language  ? 


MY    RELIGION  85 

Having  consulted  the  dictionaries  and  the  contexts, 
I  convinced  myself  that  neighbour  in  the  language  of  a 
Jew  always  means  a  Jew  only.  Such  a  definition  of 
neighhour  is  given  in  the  Gospel  in  the  parable  of  the 
Samaritan.  Accordiug  to  the  idea  of  the  lawyer,  who 
asked  who  was  a  neighbour,  a  Samaritan  could  not  be  a 
neighbour.  The  same  definition  of  neighhour  is  given  in 
Acts  vii.  27.  Neighhour  in  Gospel  language  means  a 
countryman,  a  man  belonging  to  the  same  nationality.  And 
thus,  assuming  that  the  contrast  which  Christ  points  out 
in  this  place,  when  he  Cjuotes  the  words  of  the  law.  You 
have  been  told.  Love  thy  neighbour,  and  hate  thine  enemy, 
consists  in  contrasting  a  countryman  with  a  foreigner,  I 
ask  myself,  what  is  an  enemy  according  to  the  ideas  of 
the  Jews,  and  I  find  a  confirmation  of  my  assumption. 
The  word  enemy  is  used  in  the  Gospels  almost  always,  not 
in  the  sense  of  personal,  but  general,  national  enemies 
(Luke  i.  71-74  ;  Matt.  xxii.  44  ;  Mark  xii.  36 ;  Luke  xx. 
43,  and  elsewhere).  The  singular  number  in  which  the 
word  enemy  is  used  in  these  verses  in  the  expression,  Hate 
thine  enemy,  shows  me  that  here  the  enemy  of  the  nation 
is  meant.  In  the  Old  Testament  the  idea  of  the  nation's 
enemy  is  always  expres.sed  by  the  singular. 

The  moment  I  understood  this,  there  was  at  once  re- 
moved the  difficulty  as  to  why  and  in  what  manner  Christ, 
who  every  time  quoted  the  precise  words  of  the  law, 
should  have  adduced  here  words  which  had  never  been 
uttered.  We  need  only  understand  the  word  enemy  in 
the  sense  of  a  national  enemy,  and  a  neighbour  in  the 
sense  of  a  countryman,  in  order  that  this  difficulty  should 
not  at  all  exist.  Christ  speaks  of  how,  according  to  the  law 
of  Moses,  the  Jews  are  to  treat  their  national  enemy.  All 
those  scattered  passages  in  the  various  books  of  the  Scrip- 
ture, where  the  Jews  are  enjoined  to  oppress,  and  kill,  and 
destroy  the  other  nations,  Christ  unites  into  one  expres- 
sion, To  hate,  to  do  evil  to  the  enemy.     And  he  says, 


86  MY    RELIGION" 

You  have  been  told  that  you  must  love  your  neighbours 
and  hate  the  national  enemy ;  but  I  tell  you,  You  must 
love  all  without  distinction  as  to  the  nationality,  to  which 
any  one  may  belong.  And  as  soon  as  I  comprehended 
these  words,  there  was  also  removed  the  other  difficulty  as 
to  how  I  was  to  understand  the  words,  Love  your  enemies. 
It  is  impossible  to  love  personal  enemies ;  but  it  is 
possible  to  love  the  men  of  a  hostile  nation  as  your 
own.  And  it  became  clear  to  me  that  Christ  says 
that  all  men  are  taught  to  consider  the  men  of  their  own 
nation  neighbours,  and  the  foreign  nations  enemies,  and 
that  he  commanded  us  not  to  do  this.  He  says,  Accord- 
ing to  the  law  of  Moses  a  distinction  is  made  between 
Jews  and  non-Jews,  the  national  enemies,  but  I  tell  you. 
You  must  not  make  this  distinction.  And,  indeed,  accord- 
ing to  Matthew  and  Luke,  he  says  immediately  after  this 
rule  that  all  are  alike  to  God,  that  the  sun  shines  and 
the  rain  falls  on  all  men  alike  ;  God  makes  no  distinction 
between  nations,  and  does  the  same  good  to  all  alike  ;  the 
same  ought  men  to  do  for  all  men,  without  distinction  of 
nationality,  and  not  as  the  Gentiles  do,  who  divide  them- 
selves into  separate  nations. 

Thus  there  was  again  confirmed  for  me  from  various 
sides  the  simple,  important,  clear  and  applicable  compre- 
hension of  Christ's  words.  Instead  of  a  hazy  utterance 
and  indefinite  philosophizing  there  again  appeared  a  clear, 
definite,  important,  and  practicable  rule  :  not  to  make  any 
distinction  between  one's  own  and  a  foreign  nation,  and 
not  to  do  what  results  from  this  distinction,  —  not  to  har- 
bour ill-will  toward  other  nations,  nor  wage  war,  nor  take 
part  in  wars,  nor  arm  for  war,  —  but  to  act  toward  all 
men,  no  matter  of  what  nationality,  as  though  they  were 
of  our  own. 

All  this  was  so  simple,  so  clear,  that  I  wondered  how  it 
was  I  did  not  understand  it  at  once. 

The  reason  why  I  did  not  understand  this  was  the  same 


MY   RELIGION  87 

as  in  the  case  of  the  prohibition  of  courts  and  oaths.  It 
is  very  hard  to  understand  that  all  the  courts,  which  are 
opened  with  Christian  prayers  and  are  blessed  by  those 
who  consider  themselves  guardians  of  Christ's  law,  are  in- 
compatible with  the  confession  of  Christ  and  are  directly 
opposed  to  him.  Still  more  difficult  is  it  to  divine  that 
the  oath,  to  which  the  guardians  of  Christ's  law  lead  us, 
is  directly  forbidden  by  this  law ;  and  it  is  terribly  diffi- 
cult to  guess  that  that  which  in  our  life  is  regarded  not 
only  as  necessary  and  natural,  but  also  very  beautiful  and 
virtuous, —  love  of  country,  its  defence  and  glorification, 
the  struggle  with  the  enemy,  and  so  forth,  —  is  not 
only  a  transgression  of  Christ's  law,  but  even  an  obvious 
renunciation  of  the  same. 

We  have  closed  our  ears  to  what  he  has  told  us  of  our 
life,  or  have  forgotten  that  he  has  told  us  that  we  must 
not  kill,  and  not  even  be  angry  with  another  man,  that 
we  must  not  defend  ourselves,  but  offer  the  second  cheek, 
and  that  we  must  love  our  enemies,  —  so  that  now,  since 
we  are  accustomed  to  call  men,  who  have  devoted  their 
life  to  murder,  the  Christ-loving  military,  who  are  used  to 
hear  Te  Deums  addressed  to  Christ  concerning  the  victory 
over  the  enemy,  who  base  their  glory  and  pride  on  murder, 
who  have  advanced  the  symbol  of  murder,  the  sword,  to  a 
certain  kind  of  holiness,  so  that  a  man  without  this  sym- 
bol —  without  the  knife  —  is  a  disgraced  man,  we  think 
that  Christ  has  not  forbidden  war  and  that,  if  he  had  for- 
bidden it,  he  would  have  spoken  more  clearly. 

We  forget  that  Christ  could  not  have  imagined  that 
men  who  beheve  in  his  teaching  of  humility,  love,  and 
universal  brotherhood  would  calmly  and  consciously  es- 
tablish the  murder  of  their  brothers. 

Christ  could  not  have  imagined  it,  and  so  he  could  not 
have  forbidden  a  Christian  to  wage  war,  just  as  a  father 
who  instructs  his  son  how  to  live  honestly,  without 
oftending  any  one  and  by  giving  his  own  to  others,  would 


88  MY    KELIGION 

not  think  of  forbidding  him  to  kill  men  on  the  high- 
way. 

Nor  could  one  of  the  apostles,  nor  one  of  the  disciples 
of  Christ  of  the  first  centuries  of  Christianity,  have  imag- 
ined that  it  was  necessary  to  forbid  murder,  called  war. 
This,  for  example,  is  what  Origen  says  in  his  reply  to 
Celsius. 

He  says  (Chap.  LXIII.) :  "  Celsius  admonishes  us  that 
we  should  with  all  our  strength  aid  the  emperor,  take  part 
in  his  lawful  labours,  arm  ourselves  for  him,  serve  under 
his  standards,  if  necessary,  '  lead  his  armies  in  war.'  To 
this  we  must  reply  that  we  occasionally  offer  aid  to  kings, 
but,  so  to  speak,  divine  aid,  for  we  are  girded  in  the  mail 
of  God.  In  this  conduct  we  submit  to  the  voice  of  the 
apostle.  '  I  exhort  that  first  of  all,'  he  says,  '  supplica- 
tions, prayers,  intercessions,  and  giving  of  thauks,  be  made 
for  all  men,  for  kings,  and  for  all  that  are  in  authority.' 
Thus,  the  more  a  man  is  pious,  the  more  he  is  useful  to 
kings,  and  his  use  is  more  eificacious  than  that  of  a  sol- 
dier, who,  having  enlisted  under  the  standards  of  the  king, 
kills  as  mauy  enemies  as  he  can.  Besides,  to  men  who, 
not  knowing  our  religion,  demand  of  us  that  we  should 
kill  people,  we  can  reply  that  even  your  priests  do  not 
defile  their  hands,  in  order  that  your  God  may  receive 
their  sacrifices.     Even  so  do  we." 

And,  concluding  this  chapter  by  an  explanation  that 
the  Christians  are  more  useful  by  their  peaceful  lives 
than  the  soldiers,  Origen  says :  "  Thus  we  struggle  bet- 
ter than  any  one  for  the  salvation  of  the  emperor.  It  is 
true,  we  do  not  serve  under  his  standards.  We  will  not 
serve,  even  if  he  compels  us  to  do  so." 

Such  were  the  relations  of  the  Christians  of  the  first 
ages  to  war,  and  tliiis  spoke  their  teachers,  turning  to  the 
mighty  of  the  world,  at  a  time  when  the  martyrs  died  by 
hundreds  and  by  thousands  for  the  confession  of  Christ's 
faith. 


MY    RELIGION  89 

And  now  ?  Now  there  does  not  even  exist  the  question 
as  to  whether  a  Christian  can  participate  in  wars.  All 
young  men,  who  are  brought  up  in  the  church  law,  called 
Christianity,  go  every  autumn,  when  their  turn  has  come, 
to  the  military  enlisting-offices,  and  with  the  aid  of  the 
church  pastors  renounce  the  law  of  Christ.  It  was  only 
lately  that  a  peasant  refused  to  enter  miUtary  service, 
basing  his  refusal  on  the  Gospel.  The  teachers  of  the 
church  tried  to  persuade  him  of  his  error,  but  as  he  be- 
lieved Christ,  and  not  them,  he  was  put  in  prison,  where 
he  was  kept  until  he  renounced  Christ.  All  this  is  done 
after  our  God  announced  to  us  Christians  eighteen  hundred 
years  ago  the  very  clear  and  definite  commandment.  Do 
not  consider  the  men  of  the  other  nations  thy  enemies,  but 
regard  all  men  as  thy  brothers  and  treat  all  men  as  thou 
treatest  the  men  of  thy  own  nation,  and  so  not  only  refrain 
from  kilhng  thy  enemies,  but  love  them  and  do  them 
good. 

When  I  thus  understood  the  simple,  definite  command- 
ments of  Christ,  when  they  were  subject  to  no  misinter- 
pretations, I  asked  myself,  What  would  happen  if  the 
Christian  world  believed  in  these  commandments,  not  in 
the  sense  that  they  are  to  be  sung  or  read  for  the  pro- 
pitiation of  God,  but  in  the  sense  of  fultilliug  them  for  the 
happiness  of  men  ?  What  would  happen  if  men  believed 
in  the  obligatoriness  of  these  commandments  at  least  as 
firmly  as  they  beheve  that  we  must  pray  every  day,  go 
to  church  on  Sunday,  eat  fish  on  Friday,  and  prepare  our- 
selves every  year  for  communion  ?  What  would  happen 
if  men  believed  in  these  commandments  as  they  believe 
in  the  demands  of  the  church  ? 

I  imagined  the  whole  Christian  society  as  living  and 
educating  the  young  generations  in  these  commandments. 
I  imagined  that  all  of  us  and  our  children  were  impressed 
from  childhood  in  word  and  deed,  not  by  what  they  are 
impressed  by  now,  that  a  man  must  preserve  his  dignity, 


yU  MY    RELIGION 

defend  his  rights  before  others  (which  cannot  be  done 
otherwise  than  by  humbhng  and  offending  others),  but  by 
this,  that  not  one  man  has  any  rights  and  can  be  higher  or 
lower ;  that  only  he  is  lower  and  more  disgraceful  who 
wants  to  stand  higher  than  the  rest ;  that  there  is  no 
more  debasing  condition  for  man  than  the  condition  of 
anger  against  another  man ;  that  the  seeming  insigniti- 
cance  or  senselessness  of  a  man  cannot  justify  my  anger 
against  him  and  my  dissension  with  him. 

Instead  of  the  whole  structure  of  our  life,  from  the 
windows  of  the  shops  to  the  theatres,  novels,  and  female 
apparel,  which  provoke  carnal  lusts,  I  imagined  that  we 
all  and  our  children  were  impressed  in  word  and  deed 
with  the  idea  that  the  enjoyment  of  lewd  books,  theatres, 
and  balls  is  a  very  base  enjoyment,  and  that  every  action 
which  has  for  its  purpose  the  adornment  of  the  body  or 
its  accentuation  is  a  most  base  and  contemptible  act. 

Instead  of  the  structure  of  our  life,  in  which  it  is  con- 
sidered necessary  and  good  for  a  young  man  to  live  in 
debauch  before  his  marriage  ;  instead  of  considering  a  life, 
which  separates  husband  and  wife,  a  most  natural  one ; 
instead  of  legalizing  a  condition  of  women  wiio  serve  for 
debauch,  —  instead  of  all  that,  I  imagined  that  we  were 
impressed  in  word  and  deed  by  the  idea  that  the  single, 
celibate  state  of  a  man,  who  has  matured  for  sexual  rela- 
tions and  has  not  renounced  them,  is  a  monstrosity  and  a 
shame,  and  that  the  abandonment  by  a  man  of  a  woman, 
with  whom  he  has  come  together,  and  the  exchange  for 
another,  are  not  only  unnatural  acts,  like  incest,  but  also 
cruel,  inhuman  acts. 

Instead  of  having  the  whole  life  based  on  violence 
and  every  joy  obtained  and  guarded  by  violence ;  instead 
of  seeing  each  one  of  us  punished  or  inflicting  punish- 
ment from  childhood  to  deepest  old  age,  —  I  imagined 
that  we  were  all  impressed  in  word  and  deed  by  the  idea 
that  vengeance  is  a  very  low,  animal  feeling ;  that  violence 


MY    RELIGION  91 

is  not  only  a  disgraceful  act,  but  also  one  which  deprives 
man  of  true  happiness;  that  only  that  is  the  joy  of  hfe 
which  need  not  be  protected  by  violence ;  that  the  high- 
est respect  is  not  due  to  him  who  takes  away  and  keeps 
his  own  from  others,  and  whom  others  serve,  but  he  who 
gives  away  his  own  and  serves  others. 

Instead  of  considering  it  beautiful  and  legitimate  for 
every  man  to  swear  and  give  everything  which  is  most 
precious  to  him,  that  is,  his  whole  life,  to  the  will  of 
somebody  he  does  not  know,  I  imagined  that  all  were 
impressed  with  the  idea  that  man's  reasonable  will  is  that 
highest  holiness  which  man  cannot  give  to  any  one,  and 
that  to  promise  anything  to  any  one  with  an  oath  is  a 
renunciation  of  one's  rational  essence,  a  detilement  of  the 
highest  hohness. 

I  imagined  that  instead  of  those  national  hatreds  which 
are  impressed  on  us  under  the  form  of  patriotism,  instead 
of  those  glorifications  of  murder,  called  wars,  which  from 
childhood  are  represented  to  us  as  most  valiant  deeds,  we 
were  impressed  with  horror  and  contempt  for  all  those 
activities,  political,  diplomatic,  military,  which  serve  for 
the  separation  of  men;  that  we  were  impressed  with  the 
idea  that  the  recognition  of  any  countries,  especial  laws, 
borders,  lands,  is  a  sign  of  the  grossest  ignorance,  and 
that  to  wage  war,  that  is,  to  kill  strangers  without  any 
cause,  is  a  most  terrible  misdeed,  possible  only  for  an 
erring  and  corrupt  man,  who  has  fallen  to  the  level  of 
an  animal. 

I  imagined  that  all  men  believed  in  this,  and  I  asked 
myself  what  would  then  be. 

Before  this  I  had  asked  myself  what  would  come  of 
the  execution  of  Christ's  teaching,  as  I  understood  it,  and 
I  had  involuntarily  replied  to  myself,  Nothing.  We  shall 
all  pray,  make  use  of  the  grace  of  the  sacraments,  believe 
in  the  redemption  and  salvation  of  ourselves  and  of  the 
whole  world  by  Christ,  and  still  the  salvation  will   not 


92  MY    RELIGION 

come  from  us,  but  from  this,  that  there  will  be  an  end 
of  the  world.  Christ  will  come  in  the  proper  time  in  his 
glory  to  judge  the  living  and  the  dead,  and  the  kingdom 
of  God  will  be  established  independently  of  our  life.  But 
now  the  teaching  of  Christ,  as  it  presented  itself  to  me, 
had  also  another  meaning :  the  establishment  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  on  earth  depended  also  on  us.  The 
fulfilment  of  Christ's  teacliing,  as  expressed  in  the  five 
commandments,  established  this  kingdom  of  God.  The 
kingdom  of  God  on  earth  is  the  peace  of  all  men  among 
themselves.  Peace  among  men  is  the  highest  accessible 
good  on  earth.  Thus  the  kingdom  of  God  had  presented 
itself  to  all  the  Jewish  prophets,  and  thus  it  presents  itself 
to  every  human  heart.  All  prophecies  promise  peace  to  men. 

The  whole  teaching  of  Christ  consists  in  giving  the 
kingdom  of  God  —  peace  —  to  men.  In  the  sermon  on 
the  mount,  in  the  discourse  with  Nicodemus,  in  the  send- 
ing forth  of  the  disciples,  in  all  his  instructions,  he  speaks 
only  of  what  separates  men  and  keeps  them  from  being 
at  peace  and  entering  the  kingdom  of  God.  All  the 
parables  are  only  descriptions  of  what  is  the  kingdom 
of  God,  which  can  be  entered  only  by  loving  our  brothers 
and  living  at  peace  with  them.  John  the  Baptist,  Christ's 
precursor,  says  that  the  kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand,  and 
that  Jesus  Christ  gives  it  to  the  world. 

Christ  says  that  he  brought  peace  upon  earth.  John 
xiv.  27  :  Peace  I  leave  with  you,  my  peace  I  give  unto 
you :  not  as  the  world  giveth,  give  I  unto  you.  Let  not 
your  heart  be  troubled,  neither  let  it  be  afraid. 

Indeed,  these  five  commandments  give  this  peace  to 
men.  All  live  commandments  have  no  other  purpose 
than  that  of  giving  peace  to  men.  Men  have  only  to 
believe  in  Christ's  teaching  and  fulfil  it,  and  there  will  be 
peace  upon  earth,  not  the  peace  which  is  established 
by  men,  temporary,  accidental,  private  peace,  but  general, 
inviolable,  eternal  peace. 


MY   RELIGION  93 

The  first  commandment  says,  Live  in  peace  with  all 
men  ;  do  not  permit  thyself  to  regard  another  man  as 
insignificant  or  senseless  (Matt.  v.  22).  If  the  peace  has 
been  broken,  use  all  thy  efforts  to  reestabhsh  it.  The 
service  of  God  is  the  annihilation  of  enmity  (23  and  24). 
Make  peace  at  the  least  dissension,  so  that  thou  mayest 
not  lose  the  true  life.  In  this  commandment  everything 
is  said  ;  but  Christ  foresees  the  offences  of  the  world, 
wliich  impair  the  peace  among  men,  and  so  he  gives 
a  second  commandment  against  the  offence  of  the  sexual 
relations,  which  impairs  the  peace.  Do  not  look  upon 
carnal  beauty  as  upon  an  amusement :  avoid  this  offence 
in  advance  (28-30) ;  let  a  man  take  one  wiie,  and  a  wife 
one  man,  and  do  not  abandon  one  another  under  any  con- 
siderations (32).  Another  offence  is  the  oaths,  which  lead 
men  into  sin.  Know  in  advance  that  it  is  an  evil,  and 
make  no  promises  (34-37).  The  third  offence  is  venge- 
ance, which  is  called  human  justice ;  wreak  no  vengeance, 
and  do  not  find  excuses  by  saying  that  they  will  offend 
thee :  bear  insult,  and  do  not  return  evil  for  evil 
(38-42).  The  fourth  offence  is  the  discrimination  of 
nationalities,  —  the  enmity  of  races  and  governments. 
Know  that  all  men  are  brothers  and  sons  of  the  one  God, 
and  do  not  break  the  peace  with  any  one  in  the  name  of 
national  purposes  (43-48).  If  men  shall  not  fulfil  one 
of  these  commandments,  peace  will  be  broken.  If  men 
shall  fulfil  all  the  commandments,  the  kingdom  of  peace 
will  be  on  earth.  The  commandments  exclude  all  evil 
from  the  life  of  men. 

Through  the  fulfilment  of  these  commandments  the 
life  of  men  will  be  what  every  human  heart  seeks  and 
desires.  All  men  will  be  brothers,  and  everybody  will 
always  be  at  peace  with  others,  enjoying  all  the  benefits 
of  the  world  during  the  term  of  life  which  is  apportioned 
to  them  by  God.  Men  will  forge  the  swords  into  plough- 
shares, and    spears    into    sickles.      There    will    be    that 


94  MY    RELIGION 

kingdom  of  God,  that  kingdom  of  peace,  which  all  the 
prophets  have  promised,  and  which  was  at  hand  in  the 
time  of  John  the  Baptist,  and  which  Christ  announced 
and  proclaimed,  speaking  with  the  words  of  Isaiah,  The 
Spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon  me,  because  he  hath  anointed 
me  to  preach  the  gospel  to  the  poor ;  he  hath  sent  me  to 
heal  the  brokenhearted,  to  preach  deliverance  to  the 
captives,  and  recovering  of  sight  to  the  blind,  to  set  at 
liberty  them  that  are  bruised,  to  preach  the  acceptable 
year  of  the  Lord  (Luke  iv.  18  and  19 ;  Isaiah  Ixi.  1 
and  2). 

The  commandments  of  peace  given  by  Christ  are  simple 
and  clear ;  they  foresee  all  cases  of  possible  dissension 
and  provide  for  them,  and  disclose  this  kingdom  of  God 
on  earth.  Consequently,  Christ  is  indeed  the  Messiah. 
He  has  fulfilled  the  promise.  It  is  we  who  are  not 
fulfilling  what  all  men  have  eternally  wished,  —  what 
we  have  been  praying  for. 


VII. 

Why  do  men  not  do  what  Christ  has  told  them  to  do, 
and  what  gives  to  them  the  highest  accessible  good,  for 
which  they  have  been  wishing  all  the  time  ?  And  on 
all  sides  I  hear  one  and  the  same  answer,  expressed 
in  different  words,  Christ's  teaching  is  very  good,  and 
it  is  true  that,  if  it  were  executed,  the  kingdom  of  God 
would  be  established  upon  earth,  but  it  is  hard  and  so 
impracticable. 

Christ's  teaching  as  to  how  men  should  live  is  divinely 
good  and  gives  good  to  men,  but  it  is  hard  for  men  to 
execute  it.  We  repeat  and  hear  this  so  often  that  we 
are  not  startled  by  the  contradiction  which  is  contained 
in  these  words. 

It  is  a  characteristic  of  human  nature  to  do  what  is 
better.  Every  teaching  about  the  life  of  men  is  only 
a  teaching  of  what  is  better  for  men.  If  it  is  shown 
to  men  what  is  better  for  them  to  do,  how  can  they  say 
that  they  wish  to  do  what  is  better,  but  are  not  able 
to  do  so?  What  men  cannot  do  is  that  which  is  worse 
and  they  cannot  help  but  do  what  is  better. 

Man's  rational  activity,  ever  since  man  has  existed,  has 
been  directed  to  finding  out  what  is  better  among  those 
contradictions  with  which  the  life  of  each  individual  and 
of  all  men  together  is  filled. 

Men  fight  for  land,  for  objects  which  they  need,  and 
then  reach  a  point  when  they  divide  everytliing  up  and 
call  it  property  :  they  find  that,  though  it  is  difficult  to 
establish  this,  it  is  better,  and  so  maintain  the  property ; 
men  fight  for  wives,  abandon  their  children,  and  then  find 

95 


96  MY    RELIGION 

that  it  is  better  for  every  man  to  have  a  family,  and, 
although  it  is  hard  to  support  a  family,  they  hold  on  to 
property,  family,  and  many  other  things.  The  moment 
men  discover  something  which  is  better,  they  act  accord- 
ingly, however  hard  it  may  be.  What,  then,  is  meant  by 
saying,  "  Christ's  teaching  is  beautiful,  life  according  to 
Christ's  teaching  is  better  than  the  one  we  now  live,  but 
we  cannot  live  as  is  better,  because  it  is  hard  ? " 

If  this  word  hai^d  is  to  be  taken  as  meaning  that  it  is 
hard  to  sacrifice  the  momentary  gratification  of  the  appe- 
tites to  the  greater  good,  why  do  we  not  say  that  it  is 
hard  to  plough  in  order  that  we  may  have  bread,  and 
to  set  out  apple-trees,  in  order  that  there  may  be 
apples  ? 

Every  being  which  is  endowed  with  incipient  reason 
knows  that  it  is  necessary  to  endure  hardships  for  the  sake 
of  the  greater  good.  Suddenly  it  turns  out  that  we  say 
that  Christ's  teaching  is  beautiful,  but  that  it  is  impracti- 
cable, because  it  is  hard  :  and  it  is  hard,  because,  in  fol- 
lowing it,  we  shall  be  deprived  of  what  we  had  not  been 
deprived  of  before.  We  act  as  though  we  never  heard 
that  at  times  it  is  more  advantageous  to  suffer  and  be 
deprived  of  something,  than  not  to  suffer  at  all  and 
always  to  gratify  our  appetites. 

A  man  may  be  an  animal,  and  no  one  will  rebuke  him 
for  it ;  but  a  man  cannot  reflect  that  he  wishes  to  be  an 
animal.  The  moment  he  reflects,  he  recognizes  himself 
as  a  rational  being,  and,  recognizing  himself  as  such,  he 
cannot  help  recognizing  what  is  rational,  and  what  irra- 
tional. Reason  does  not  command  anything ;  it  only 
enlightens. 

I  have  hurt  my  hands  and  knees,  trying  to  find  the 
door  in  the  dark.  A  man  comes  in  with  a  light,  and  I  see 
the  door.  I  shall  no  longer  strike  against  the  wall  when  I 
see  the  door,  and  still  less  can  I  affirm  that  I  see  the  door 
and  that  I  find  that  it  is  better  to  pass  through  the  door, 


MY    RELIGION  97 

but  that  this  is  hard,  and  so  1  want  to  continue  striking 
my  knees  against  the  wall. 

In  this  marvellous  reflection,  The  Christian  teaching  is 
ffood  and  gives  the  good  to  the  world,  but  men  are  weak 
and  bad,  and  want  to  do  what  is  better,  but  do  what  is 
worse,  and  so  cannot  do  what  is  better,  there  is  an  obvi- 
ous misunderstanding. 

It  is  evidently  not  an  error  of  reasoning,  but  something 
else.  There  must  be  here  some  false  conception.  Only 
a  false  conception  that  w^hat  is  not  exists,  and  what  is 
does  not  exist  can  bring  people  to  that  strange  denial  of 
the  practicability  of  that  which,  according  to  their  admis- 
sion, gives  them  the  good. 

The  false  conception  which  has  led  them  to  this  is 
what  is  called  the  dogmatic  Christian  faith,  which  is 
taught  from  childhood  to  all  those  who  profess  the  Chris- 
tian faith  of  the  church  according  to  all  kinds  of  Ortho- 
dox, Catholic,  and  Protestant  catechisms. 

This  faith,  according  to  the  definition  of  the  behevers,  is 
the  recognition  of  what  seems  as  existing  (this  is  said  in 
Paul  and  is  repeated  in  all  theologies  and  catechisms,  as 
the  best  definition  of  faith).  And  it  is  this  recognition  of 
what  seems  as  existing  which  has  led  men  to  this  strange 
assertion  that  Christ's  teaching  is  good  for  men,  but  that 
it  is  of  no  use  for  them. 

The  doctrine  of  this  faith  in  its  most  exact  expression 
is  like  this :  the  personal  God,  who  exists  for  ever,  one  in 
three  persons,  suddenly  took  it  into  his  head  to  create  the 
world  of  spirits.  The  good  God  created  this  world  of 
spirits  for  their  benefit ;  but  it  happened  that  one  of  the 
spirits  became  very  bad  and,  therefore,  unhappy.  Much 
time  passed,  and  God  created  another  world,  the  material 
world,  and  man,  again  for  his  good.  God  created  man 
blessed,  immortal,  and  sinless.  Man's  blessedness  con- 
sisted in  using  the  good  of  the  world  w^ithout  labour: 
his  immortality   consisted  in   this,  that  he  was  to   live 


98  MY    RELIGION 

SO  for  ever  ;  his  sinlessness  cousisted  in  his  not  knowing 
evil. 

This  man  was  tempted  in  paradise  by  that  spirit  of  the 
first  creation,  who  of  himself  became  evil,  and  then  man 
fell,  and  there  were  born  just  such  fallen  men,  and  after 
that  men  began  to  work,  be  sick,  suffer,  die,  struggle  bod- 
ily and  spiritually,  that  is,  the  imaginary  man  became  the 
real  man,  such  as  we  know  him,  and  such  that  we  cannot 
and  have  no  right  or  reason  to  imagine  him  otherwise. 
The  condition  of  a  working,  suffering  man,  who  chooses 
the  good  and  avoids  the  evil,  and  who  dies,  such  as  it  is 
and  outside  of  which  we  cannot  imagine  anything,  is, 
according  to  the  doctrine  of  the  faith,  not  the  real  condi- 
tion of  man,  but  his  unreal,  accidental,  temporary  state. 

Although  this  state  has,  according  to  this  doctrine, 
lasted  since  Adam's  expulsion  from  paradise,  that  is,  since 
the  beginning  of  the  world  to  the  birth  of  Christ,  and  has 
been  continued  the  same  for  all  men,  it  is  only  an  acci- 
dental and  temporary  state.  According  to  this  doctrine,  the 
son  of  God,  God  himself,  the  second  person  of  the  Trinity, 
was  sent  by  God  upon  earth  in  the  shape  of  a  man,  that 
he  might  save  men  from  this  improper,  accidental,  tempo- 
rary state,  take  off  of  them  all  the  curses  which  were  im- 
posed on  them  by  the  same  God  for  Adam's  sin,  and  rees- 
tablish them  in  their  former  natural  state  of  bhss,  that  is, 
of  freedom  from  disease,  of  immortality,  sinlessness,  and 
idleness.  The  second  person  of  the  Trinity,  Christ,  accord- 
ing to  this  teaching,  redeemed  Adam's  sin  by  the  very  fact 
that  men  executed  him,  and  put  a  stop  to  this  unnatural 
condition  of  man,  which  had  lasted  since  the  beginning  of 
the  world.  Since  then,  man,  believing  in  Christ,  became 
once  more  such  as  he  had  been  in  paradise,  that  is, 
immortal,  free  from  disease,  sinless,  and  idle. 

On  that  part  of  the  realization  of  the  redemption,  by 
dint  of  which  after  Christ  the  earth  began  for  the  be- 
lievers everywhere  to  bear  without   labour,  the  diseases 


MY   RELIGION  99 

stopped,  and  children  were  born  of  mothers  without  suf- 
fering, this  doctrine  does  not  dwell,  because  it  is  cUfficult 
to  impress  those  who  have  to  work  hard  and  who  suffer 
grievously  that  it  is  not  hard  to  work  and  not  painful  to 
suffer.  But  that  part  of  the  doctrine,  according  to  which 
there*  is  no  death  and  no  sin,  is  affirmed  with  especial 
force. 

It  is  afBrmed  that  the  dead  continue  to  live,  and  since  the 
dead  are  not  able  in  any  way  to  confirm  the  fact  that  they 
are  dead,  nor  that  they  live,  just  as  a  stone  cannot  confirm 
that  it  can  speak  or  not,  this  absence  of  any  denial  is  taken 
as  a  proof,  and  it  is  affirmed  that  the  men  who  have  died 
are  not  dead.  And  with  still  greater  solemnity  and  con- 
fidence it  is  affirmed  that  after  Christ  a  man  is  freed  from 
sin  through  faith  in  him,  that  is,  that  after  Christ  a  man 
no  longer  needs  illuminate  his  life  through  reason  and 
choose  what  is  best  for  him.  All  he  has  to  do  is  to 
believe  that  Christ  redeemed  him  from  sin,  and  then  he 
is  sinless,  that  is,  entirely  good.  According  to  this  teach- 
ing, men  must  imagine  that  reason  is  powerless  in  them, 
and  that,  therefore,  they  are  sinless,  that  is,  cannot  err, 

A  true  believer  must  imagine  that  since  the  time  of 
Christ  the  earth  has  brought  forth  fruit  without  labour, 
children  are  born  without  pain,  there  are  no  diseases, 
there  is  no  death  and  no  sin,  that  is,  there  are  no  errors, 
that  is,  there  is  not  what  is,  -and  there  is  what  is  not. 

Thus  speaks  the  strictly  logical  theological  theory. 

This  doctrine  is  harmless  in  itself.  But  the  departure 
from  truth  is  never  harmless,  and  leads  to  consequences 
which  are  the  more  serious,  the  more  serious  the  subject 
is,  in  respect  to  wliich  the  untruth  is  said.  But  here  the 
subject  in  respect  to  which  the  untruth  is  said  is  the  whole 
human  life. 

What  according  to  this  doctrine  is  called  the  true  life, 
is  the  personal,  bhssful,  sinless,  and  eternal  life,  that  is, 
such  as  no  one  ever  knew  and  as  does  not  exist.     But  the 


100  MY    RELIGION 

life  which  exists,  which  alone  we  know,  which  we  live, 
which  all  humanity  has  lived,  is  according  to  this  doctrine 
a  fallen,  bad  life,  —  a  sample  only  of  the  good  life  which 
is  due  us. 

The  struggle  between  the  striving  after  the  animal  life 
and  that  after  the  rational  life,  which  lies  in  the  soul  of 
each  man  and  forms  the  essence  of  the  hfe  of  each  man, 
is  according  to  this  doctrine  entirely  removed.  This  strug- 
gle is  transferred  to  the  incident  which  took  place  in  par- 
adise with  Adam  at  the  creation  of  the  world.  The  ques- 
tion as  to  whether  I  shall  eat  the  apples  that  tempt  me, 
or  not,  does  not  exist  for  man  according  to  this  teaching. 
This  question  was  once  for  all  solved  hi  paradise  by  Adam 
in  a  negative  sense.  Adam  sinned  for  me,  that  is,  made 
a  mistake,  and  all  men,  all  of  us,  are  irretrievably  fallen, 
and  all  our  efforts  to  live  sensibly  are  useless  and  even 
godless.  I  am  incorrigibly  bad,  and  must  know  this. 
My  salvation  is  not  in  this,  that  I  can  enlighten  life  by 
means  of  reason  and,  having  learned  what  is  good  and  bad, 
do  what  is  best.  No,  Adam  has  once  for  all  acted  badly  for 
me,  and  Christ  has  once  for  all  corrected  this  evil  done 
by  Adam,  and  so  I  must,  as  a  spectator,  be  contrite  con- 
cerning Adam's  fall  and  rejoice  at  Christ's  salvation. 

But  all  that  love  of  goodness  and  truth  which  hes  in 
the  soul  of  man,  all  his  efforts  to  enlighten  the  phenomena 
of  life  by  means  of  reason,  my  whole  spiritual  life,  —  all 
that  is  not  only  of  no  importance  according  to  this  doc- 
trine, but  is  also  seduction  or  pride. 

Life,  such  as  there  is  here  upon  earth,  with  all  its  joys 
and  beauties,  with  all  the  struggle  of  reason  against  dark- 
ness,—  the  life  of  all  men  who  have  lived  before  my 
time,  my  whole  life,  with  my  internal  struggle  and  con- 
quests of  reason,  is  not  the  true  life,  but  a  fallen  and 
hopelessly  corrupted  life  :  but  the  true,  sinless  life  is  in 
faith,  that  is,  in  imagination,  that  is,  in  insanity. 

Let  a  man,  renouncing  the  habit,  acquired  in  childhood, 


MY    RELIGION  101 

of  admitting  this,  try  and  look  at  this  doctrine  in  a  simple 
and  direct  manner;  let  him  mentally  transfer  himself 
into  a  fresh  man,  educated  outside  this  teaching,  and 
imagine  how  this  doctrine  will  appear  to  such  a  man. 
Why,  it  is  the  merest  madness  ! 

No  matter  how  strange  and  terrible  it  was  for  me  to 
think  so,  I  could  not  help  but  acknowledge  this,  because 
this  alone  explained  to  me  that  remarkable  contradictory, 
senseless  resort  which  I  hear  on  all  sides  against  the 
practicableness  of  Christ's  teaching  :  It  is  good  and  gives 
happiness  to  men,  but  men  cannot  fulfil  it. 

Only  the  conception  of  what  does  not  exist  as  existing, 
and  of  what  exists  as  not  existing,  could  have  brought 
men  to  this  strange  contradiction.  And  such  a  false  con- 
ception I  found  in  the  pseudo-Christian  faith  which  has 
been  preached  for  fifteen  hundred  years. 

But  it  is  not  the  believers  alone  who  object  to  Christ's 
teaching,  saying  that  it  is  good,  but  impracticable  ;  this 
is  done  also  by  the  unbelievers,  by  men  who  do  not 
believe,  or  think  that  they  do  not  believe,  in  the  dogma  of 
the  fall  and  the  redemption.  The  objection  to  Christ's 
teaching,  which  consists  in  its  impracticableness,  is  made 
by  men  of  science,  by  philosophers,  in  general  Ijy  educa- 
ted men,  who  consider  themselves  free  from  the  supersti- 
tion of  the  fall  and  the  redemption.  And  so  it  had  seemed 
to  me  at  first.  It  had  also  seemed  to  me  that  these 
learned  men  had  other  grounds  for  denying  the  practica- 
bleness of  Christ's  teaching.  But,  when  I  entered  deeper 
into  the  foundations  of  their  denial,  I  convinced  myself 
that  the  unbelievers  had  the  same  false  conception  that 
our  life  is  not  what  it  is,  but  what  it  seems  to  them,  and 
that  this  conception  is  based  on  the  same  foundation  as 
the  conception  of  the  believers.  Those  who  profess  to  be 
unbelievers,  it  is  true,  believe  neither  in  God,  nor  in 
Christ,  nor  in  Adam ;  but  they  beheve  even  more  firmly 
than  the  theologians  in  the  fundamental  false  conception 


102  MY    RELIGION 

as  to  man's  rights  to  a  blessed  life,  on  which  everything 
is  based. 

Let  privileged  science  with  its  philosophy  boast  as 
much  as  it  please,  assuring  us  that  it  is  the  moderator  and 
guide  of  the  minds,  —  it  is  not  the  guide,  but  the  servant. 
The  world  conception  is  always  given  to  it  ready-made  by 
religion,  and  science  only  works  on  the  path  indicated 
to  it  by  religion.  Eeligion  discloses  the  meaning  of  the 
life  of  men,  and  science  applies  this  meaning  to  the  various 
sides  of  life.  And  so,  if  rehgion  gives  a  false  meaning  to 
life,  science,  which  is  educated  in  this  religious  world 
conception,  will  from  various  sides  apply  this  false  mean- 
ing to  the  life  of  men.  Even  so  it  has  happened  with  our 
European,  Christian  science  and  philosophy. 

The  church  doctrine  gave  the  fundamental  meaning  of 
the  life  of  men,  asserting  that  man  had  a  right  to  a  blessed 
life,  and  that  this  blessedness  is  obtained  not  by  the 
efforts  of  man,  but  by  something  external,  and  this  world 
conception  has  become  the  foundation  of  our  whole  science 
and  philosophy. 

Eeligion,  science,  public  opinion  all  say  in  one  voice 
that  the  life  which  we  lead  is  bad,  but  that  the  teaching 
as  to  how  we  may  ourselves  try  to  be  better,  and  thus 
make  life  itself  better,  is  impracticable. 

Christ's  teaching  in  the  sense  of  improving  the  life  of 
man  by  his  rational  efforts  is  impracticable,  because 
Adam  fell  and  the  world  hes  in  evil,  says  religion. 

This  teaching  is  impracticable,  because  human  life  is 
accomplished  according  to  certain  laws  which  are  inde- 
pendent of  the  will  of  man,  says  our  philosophy.  Phi- 
losophy and  the  whole  science  says  with  other  words 
precisely  what  religion  says  with  its  dogma  of  the  first 
fall  and  the  redemption. 

In  the  doctrine  of  the  redemption  there  are  two  funda- 
mental propositions,  on  which  everything  is  based:  (1) 
the  lawful  life  of  man  is  the  blessed  life,  while  the  life 


MY    RELIGION  103 

of  the  world  is  bad  and  cannot  be  mended  through  man's 
efforts,  and  (2)  the  salvation  from  this  life  is  in  faith. 

These  two  propositions  became  the  foundation  of  the 
world  conception  both  of  the  behevers  and  the  unbe- 
lievers of  our  pseudo-Christian  society.  From  the  second 
proposition  resulted  the  church  with  its  establishments. 
From  the  first  proposition  result  our  social  opinion  and 
our  philosophical  and  political  theories. 

All  the  philosophical  and  political  theories  which 
justify  the  existing  order,  Hegehsm  and  its  children,  are 
based  on  this  proposition.  Pessimism,  which  demands 
of  life  what  it  cannot  give,  and  which,  therefore,  denies 
life,  results  from  the  same. 

Materialism,  with  its  remarkable  rapturous  assertion 
that  man  is  a  process  and  nothing  else,  is  a  lawful  child 
of  this  doctrine,  which  assumes  that  the  present  life  is  a 
fallen  hfe.  Spirituahsm,  with  its  learned  followers,  is  the 
best  proof  of  this,  that  the  scientific  and  philosophical 
conceptions  are  not  free,  but  are  based  on  the  religious 
doctrine  of  the  blessed  eternal  life,  which  is  peculiar  to 
man. 

The  distortion  of  the  meaning  of  life  has  distorted  the 
whole  rational  activity  of  man.  The  dogma  of  man's 
fall  and  redemption  has  screened  from  men  the  most  im- 
portant and  legitimate  sphere  of  man's  activity  and  has 
excluded  from  the  whole  sphere  of  the  human  knowledge 
the  knowledge  of  what  a  man  must  do  that  he  may  be 
happier  and  better.  Science  and  philosophy,  imagining 
that  they  act  hostilely  to  the  pseudo-Christianity,  and 
priding  themselves  on  it,  work  only  for  it.  Science 
and  philosophy  treat  of  everything  you  please,  except  of 
how  a  man  can  be  and  live  better.  What  is  called  ethics 
—  moral  teaching  —  has  entirely  disappeared  in  our 
pseudo-Christian  society. 

Both  behevers  and  unbehevers  alike  do  not  ask  them- 
selves how  we  must  live  and  use  the   reason  which   is 


104  MY   KELIGION 

given  to  us,  but,  Why  is  our  human  life  not  sucti  as  we 
imagined  it  to  be,  and  when  will  it  be  such  as  we  want 
it  to  be  ? 

Only  thanks  to  this  false  doctrine,  which  has  entered 
the  flesh  and  blood  of  our  generations,  could  there  have 
happened  that  remarkable  phenomenon,  which  is  that 
man  has  apparently  disgorged  that  apple  of  the  knowledge 
of  good  and  evil,  which,  according  to  tradition,  he  ate  in 
paradise,  and,  forgetting  that  man's  whole  history  consists 
only  in  solving  the  contradictions  of  the  rational  and  the 
animal  nature,  has  begun  to  use  his  reason  for  the  purpose 
of  finding  the  historical  laws  of  his  animal  nature  alone. 

The  religious  and  philosophical  teachings  of  all  the 
nations,  except  the  philosophical  teachings  of  the  pseudo- 
Christian  world,  all  which  we  know,  —  Judaism,  Confu- 
cianism, Buddhism,  Brahmanism,  Greek  philosophy,  —  all 
the  teachings  have  for  their  aim  the  arrangement  of  the 
human  life  and  the  elucidation  of  how  each  must  strive 
to  be  and  live  better.  The  whole  Confucianism  is  in  the 
personal  perfection,  Judaism  —  in  the  personal  fulfilment 
of  each  covenant  with  God,  Buddhism  —  in  the  teaching 
of  how  each  can  save  himself  from  the  evil  of  life.  Soc- 
rates taught  personal  perfection  in  the  name  of  reason ; 
the  Stoics  recognized  rational  freedom  as  the  one  basis  of 
true  life. 

Man's  whole  rational  activity  could  not  help  but  con- 
sist, and  has  always  consisted,  in  the  enlightenment  by 
reason  of  the  striving  after  the  good.  The  freedom  of  the 
will,  says  our  philosophy,  is  an  illusion,  and  it  is  very 
proud  of  the  boldness  of  this  assertion.  But  the  freedom 
of  the  will  is  not  only  an  illusion,  it  is  a  word  which  has 
no  meaning  whatever.  This  word  is  invented  by  theo- 
logians and  criminalists,  and  to  oppose  this  word  would 
be  the  same  as  fighting  windmills.  But  reason,  which 
enlightens  our  life  and  compels  us  to  change  our  acts, 
is  not  an  illusion,  and  this  can  in  no  way  be  denied.    The 


MY    RELIGION  105 

following  of  reason  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  the  good, 
—  in  this  has  always  consisted  the  teaching  of  all  true 
teachers  of  humanity,  and  in  this  consists  the  teaching  of 
Christ,  and  it  is  impossible  to  deny  reason  by  means 
of  reason. 

Christ's  teaching  is  the  teaching  about  the  son  of  man, 
common  to  all  men,  that  is,  about  the  striving  after  the 
good,  common  to  all  men,  about  the  common  reason,  which 
enhghteus  man  in  this  striving.  It  is  quite  superfluous 
to  prove  that  the  son  of  man  means  the  son  of  man.  If 
we  wish  to  understand  by  the  son  of  man  something 
different  from  what  these  words  mean,  it  is  necessary  to 
prove  that,  in  defining  what  he  wished  to  say,  Christ 
intentionally  used  words  which  had  an  entirely  different 
significance.  But  even  if,  as  the  church  wants  it,  the  son 
of  man  means  the  sou  of  God,  the  son  of  man  still  means 
man  by  its  essence,  because  Christ  calls  all  men  sons  of  God. 

Christ's  teaching  about  the  son  of  man,  the  son  of  God, 
which  forms  the  foundation  of  all  the  gospels,  is  most 
clearly  expressed  in  the  discourse  with  Nicodenms. 
Every  man,  he  says,  in  addition  to  recognizing  his  carnal 
personal  life,  proceeding  from  a  male  father  in  the  womb 
of  a  carnal  mother,  cannot  help  but  recognize  his  birth 
from  above  (John  iii.  5-7).  What  man  recognizes  in  him- 
self as  free  is  that  which  is  born  of  the  infinite,  of  that 
which  we  call  God  (11-14).  This  which  is  born  of  God, 
this  son  of  God  in  man,  we  must  lift  up  in  ourselves,  in 
order  that  we  may  receive  the  true  life  (14-17).  The 
son  of  man  is  the  monogenous  (of  the  same  birth,  and  not 
the  only-begotten)  son  of  God.  He  who  exalts  in  him- 
self this  son  of  God  above  everything  else,  who  believes 
that  life  is  only  in  this,  will  not  be  in  disseverance  from  life. 
The  disseverance  from  life  is  due  only  to  this,  that  men 
do  not  believe  in  the  light  which  is  in  them  (18-21). 
(That  liglit  of  which  it  says  in  the  Gospel  of  John  that 
in  it  is  hfe,  and  that  life  is  the  light  of  men). 


106  MY   EELIGION 

Christ  taught  us  to  exalt  above  all  else  the  son  of  man, 
that  is  the  son  of  God  and  the  light  of  men.  He  says, 
When  you  lift  up  (exalt)  the  son  of  man,  you  will  know 
that  I  speak  nothing  of  myself  personally  (John  xii.  32, 
44,  49).  The  Jews  do  not  understand  his  teaching,  and 
ask,  Who  is  this  son  of  man  who  is  to  be  lifted  up  ?  (John 
xii.  34).  And  to  this  question  he  replies  (John  xii.  35), 
Yet  a  little  while  is  the  light  in^  you.  Walk  while  ye 
have  the  light,  lest  darkness  come  upon  you  :  for  he  that 
walketh  in  darkness  knoweth  not  whither  he  goeth.  In 
reply  to  the  question  as  to  what  is  meant  by  lifting  up 
the  son  of  man,  Christ  says.  To  live  in  the  light  which  is 
in  men. 

The  son  of  man,  according  to  Christ's  answer,  is  the 
light  in  which  men  must  walk,  while  there  is  light  in 
them. 

Luke  xi.  35  :  Take  heed,  therefore,  that  the  light  which 
is  in  thee  be  not  darkness. 

Matt.  vi.  23  :  If  the  light  that  is  in  thee  be  darkness, 
how  great  is  that  darkness !  he  says,  instructing  all  men. 

Before  and  after  Christ,  men  have  said  the  same,  that 
there  is  in  man  a  divine  light,  which  came  down  from 
heaven,  and  this  light  is  reason,  and  that  it  alone  is  to  be 
served,  and  in  it  alone  the  good  is  to  be  found.  Thus 
spoke  the  teachers  of  the  Brahmins,  and  the  Jewish  proph- 
ets, and  Confucius,  and  Marcus  Aurelius,  and  Epictetus, 
and  aU  the  true  sages,  not  the  composers  of  philosophical 
theories,  but  those  men  who  sought  the  truth  for  their 
own  good  and  for  the  good  of  all  men.^ 

^  In  all  the  church  translations  there  is  an  intentional  mistransla- 
tion in  this  place  :  instead  of  in  you,  ev  v/mv,  these  words  are  every- 
where translated  by  with  you.  — Author'' s  Note. 

2  Marcus  Aurelius  says  :  "  Eevere  that  which  is  most  powerful  in  the 
world,  that  which  makes  use  of  everytliiii.i^  and  governs  everything. 
Revere  also  what  is  in  thee  :  it  is  like  the  first,  because  it  makes  use  of 
what  is  in  thee,  and  governs  thy  life." 

Epictetus  says  :  "  God  sowed  his  seed  not  only  in  my  father  and 
grandfather,  but  also  ia  all  beings  which  live  upon  earth,  especially  in 


MY   RELIGION  107 

Suddenly  we  recognize  by  the  dogma  of  the  redemption 
that  we  must  not  even  speak  or  think  of  this  light  in 
man.  We  must  think,  say  the  believers,  only  of  what 
attributes  each  person  of  the  Trinity  has,  and  of  what  sac- 
raments must  be  performed,  and  what  not,  because  the 
salvation  of  men  will  be  accomplished,  not  by  our  efforts, 
but  by  the  Trinity  and  the  correct  performance  of  the  sac- 
raments. We  must  think,  say  the  uiiltelievers,  of  this,  by 
what  laws  an  infinitely  small  particle  of  matter  accom- 
plishes its  motion  in  infinite  space  and  infinite  time ;  but 
we  must  not  think  of  what  man's  reason  needs  for  its  good, 
because  the  betterment  of  man's  condition  will  not  come 
from  him,  but  from  general  laws,  which  we  shall 
discover. 

I  am  convinced  that  in  a  few  centuries  the  history  of 
the  so-called  scientific  activity  of  our  boasted  last  centu- 
ries of  the  European  humanity  will  form  an  inexhaustible 
subject  of  laughter  and  pity  for  the  future  generations. 
For  several  centuries  the  learned  men  of  the  small  west- 
ern part  of  the  great  continent  lived  in  outright  madness, 
imagining  that  to  them  belonged  eternal,  blessed  life,  and 
busied  themselves  with  all  kinds  of  lucubrations  as  to 
how  and  by  what  laws  this  life  would  come  to  them ;  but 
they  themselves  did  nothing  and  never  thought  of  how 
they  might  make  their  life  better.  And  wliat  will  appear 
even  more  tragic  to  the  future  historian  is  this,  that  he 
will  find  that  these  men  had  a  teacher  who  showed  them 
clearly  and  definitely  what  they  ought  to  do  in  order  that 
they  might  live  more  happily,  and  that  the  words  of  this 


the  rational  beiugs,  for  they  alone  enter  into  relation  with  God  through 
their  reason,  by  which  they  are  united  with  him." 

In  the  book  of  Confucius  it  says  :  "The  law  of  the  great  science 
consists  in  developing  and  establishing  the  principle  of  the  light  of 
reason,  which  we  received  from  heaven."  This  proposition  is  re- 
peated several  times  and  serves  as  the  foundation  of  the  teaching  of 
Confucius.  —  Author's  Note. 


108  MY    RELIGION 

teacher  were  explained  by  some  as  meaning  that  he  would 
come  to  arrange  everything  in  the  clouds,  and  by  others, 
that  these  words  were  beautiful,  but  impracticable,  because 
the  life  of  man  is  not  such  as  we  want  it  to  be,  and  so  it 
is  not  worth  while  to  busy  ourselves  with  it,  while 
man's  reason  ought  to  be  directed  to  the  study  of 
the  laws  of  this  life  without  any  reference  to  the  good 
of  man. 

The  church  says :  Christ's  teaching  is  impracticable, 
because  the  life  here  is  a  sample  of  the  real  hfe ;  it  can- 
not be  good,  —  it  is  all  in  evil.  The  best  means  for  pass- 
ing this  life  consists  in  despising  it,  and  living  by  faith, 
that  is,  by  imagining  a  future,  blessed,  eternal  life,  but 
living  here  no  matter  how,  and  praying. 

Philosophy,  science,  public  opinion  say  :  Christ's  teach- 
ing is  impracticable,  because  man's  life  does  not  depend 
on  that  light  of  reason  with  which  he  can  enlighten  life 
itself,  but  on  general  laws,  and  so  it  is  not  necessary  to 
enlighten  this  life  by  reason  and  live  in  accordance  with 
it,  but  to  hve  no  matter  how,  believing  firmly  that  accord- 
ing to  the  laws  of  historical,  sociological,  and  other  laws, 
after  we  shall  have  lived  badly  for  a  long  time,  our  hfe 
will  naturally  become  very  good. 

Men  come  to  an  estate  and  find  there  everything  nec- 
essary for  their  life,  —  a  house  with  all  its  furnishings, 
granaries  full  of  grain,  cellars,  storehouses  full  of  all  pro- 
visions ;  in  the  yard  there  are  agricultural  implements, 
tools,  harnesses,  horses,  cows,  sheep,  a  complete  farm  outfit, 
—  everything  necessary  for  a  life  of  sufficiency.  Men 
come  from  all  sides  to  this  estate  and  begin  to  make  use  of 
everything  they  find  there,  each  for  himself,  without  think- 
ing of  leaving  anything  to  those  who  are  now  with  them 
in  the  house,  nor  to  those  who  will  come  after.  Each 
wants  everything  for  himself.  Each  hastens  to  make  use 
of  what  he  can,  and  there  begins  the  destruction  of  every- 
thing,—  a  struggle,  a  fight  for  the  objects  of  possession 


MY    RELIGION  109 

the  milch  cow,  the  unshorn  sheep,  the  sows  heavy  with 
young  are  killed  for  meat ;  they  make  fires  with  looms 
and  wagons,  fight  for  the  milk  and  the  grain,  and  spill  and 
ruin  more  than  they  make  use  of.  No  one  will  eat  a 
thing  in  peace,  but  will  scowl  at  the  stronger  man  who 
comes  and  takes  it  away  from  him,  and  a  third  man  will 
take  it  from  the  second. 

Exhausted  and  beaten,  the  men,  starved,  leave  the  es- 
tate. Again  the  master  prepares  everything  on  the  estate 
so  that  men  may  live  peacefully  on  it.  Again  the  estate 
is  a  full  bowl ;  and  again  passers-by  stop  there,  and  again 
there  is  fighting  and  jostling,  and  everything  goes  to  ruin, 
and  the  men  go  away,  cursing  and  reproaching  their  com- 
panions and  the  master,  because  he  has  prepared  so  poorly 
and  so  httle.  Again  tlie  good  master  fixes  the  estate  in 
such  a  way  that  men  may  live  on  it,  and  again,  and  again, 
and  again  it  is  the  same. 

And  suddenly  among  the  new  arrivals  there  is  a 
teacher,  who  says  to  the  others,  Brothers,  we  do  not  do 
right.  See  how  many  good  things  there  are  on  this 
estate,  and  how  well  everything  is  arranged !  There  is 
enough  for  all  of  us,  and  there  will  be  something  left  for 
those  who  come  after  us,  if  only  we  shall  live  according 
to  reason.  Let  us  not  take  away  from  one  another,  but 
let  us  help  each  other.  We  shall  sow  and  plough  and 
raise  cattle,  and  all  will  live  well. 

And  it  happened  so  that  a  few  men  understood  what 
the  teacher  was  saying,  and  those  who  understood  began 
to  do  so :  they  stopped  quarrelling  and  taking  away  from 
one  another,  and  began  to  work.  But  the  rest,  who  had 
either  not  heard  the  teacher's  speeches,  or  had  heard, 
but  did  not  believe  them,  did  not  do  according  to  the 
words  of  the  man,  but  continued  to  fight  as  before,  and 
ruined  the  estate,  and  went  away.  Others  came,  and  the 
same  happened.  Those  w^ho  listened  to  the  teacher  kept 
repeating,  Do  not  fight,  do  not  ruin  the  master's  goods, 


110  MY   RELIGION 

and  you  will  be  better  off.  Do  as  the  teacher  told  you 
to  do. 

But  still  there  were  many  who  did  not  hear,  nor  believe, 
and  things  went  for  a  long  time  as  of  old.  All  this  was 
natural  and  had  to  be  so,  as  long  as  men  did  not  believe 
what  the  teacher  was  saying.  But,  they  say,  the  time 
came  when  all  on  the  estate  heard  the  teacher's  words, 
and  all  understood  them  :  they  did  more  than  understand 
them,  —  they  acknowledged  that  it  was  God  himself  who 
was  speaking  through  the  teacher,  that  the  teacher  him- 
self was  God,  and  all  believed  m  every  word  of  the 
teacher,  as  though  it  were  holy.  But,  they  say,  instead 
of  living  according  to  the  words  of  the  teacher,  it  turned 
out  that  afterward  not  one  man  kept  from  fighting,  but 
they  started  to  belabour  one  another,  and  all  began  to 
say  that  now  they  knew  for  certain  that  that  was  proper 
and  that  it  could  not  be  otherwise. 

What  does  this  mean  ?  Even  cattle  manage  to  eat 
their  feed  in  such  a  way  as  not  to  waste  it  uselessly,  and 
men  have  learned  how  to  live  better,  have  come  to  believe 
that  God  himself  ordered  them  to  hve  so,  and  live  even 
worse,  because,  they  say,  it  is  impossible  to  live  in  any 
other  way.  These  men  imagined  something  else.  What 
could  these,  men  on  the  estate  have  imagined,  that, 
believing  in  the  words  of  the  teacher,  they  should  con- 
tinue their  life  as  of  old,  taking  away  from  one  another, 
fighting,  ruining  the  property  and  themselves  ?  It  is  this  : 
the  teacher  told  them.  Your  hfe  on  this  estate  is  bad ; 
live  better  and  your  life  will  be  good ;  but  they  imagined 
that  the  teacher  condemned  all  life  on  this  estate,  and 
promised  them  another,  a  good  life,  not  on  this  estate, 
but  somewhere  in  another  place.  And  they  decided  that 
this  was  only  a  hostelry,  and  that  it  was  not  worth  while 
trying  to  live  well  in  it,  but  that  they  must  see  to  it  how 
they  might  not  lose  the  promised  good  life  in  the  other 
place.     Only  in  this  way   can   we  explain  the   strange 


MY    RELIGION  111 

conduct  of  those  men  on  the  estate,  who  believe  that  the 
teacher  was  God,  and  of  those  who  consider  him  a  wise 
man  and  his  words  just,  but  continue  to  hve  as  of  old, 
contrary  to  the  advice  of  the  teacher. 

Men  have  heard  and  comprehended  everything,  but 
have  failed  to  hear  that  the  teacher  spoke  only  of  this, 
that  men  must  find  their  happiness  here,  on  the  estate, 
on  which  they  have  met  and  which  they  imagine  is  a 
hostelry,  while  the  real  estate  is  somewhere  else.  And 
this  has  led  to  the  remarkable  reflection  that  the  words  of 
the  teacher  are  very  beautiful  and  are  even  the  words 
of  God,  but  that  it  is  difficult  to  carry  them  out  now. 

If  men  would  only  stop  ruining  one  another  and  wait- 
ing for  some  one  to  come  and  help  them,  —  Christ  in  the 
clouds  with  the  voice  of  trumpets,  or  the  historical  law^, 
or  the  law  of  the  differentiation  and  integration  of  forces ! 
Nobody  will  help  them  if  they  do  not  help  themselves. 
There  is  no  need  of  helping  them.  All  they  have  to  do 
is  not  to  expect  anything  from  heaven,  nor  from  earth, 
and  to  stop  ruining  themselves. 


VIII. 

But  let  us  suppose  that  Christ's  teaching  gives  bliss  to 
the  world ;  let  us  suppose  that  it  is  rational,  and  man 
on  the  basis  of  reason  has  no  right  to  renounce  it.  What 
is  one  man  to  do  amidst  a  world  of  men  who  do  not  fulfil 
the  law  of  Christ?  If  all  men  suddenly  agreed  to 
fulfil  Christ's  law,  its  execution  would  be  possible,  but 
one  man  alone  cannot  go  against  the  whole  world. 

If  I  alone  amidst  a  world  of  men  who  do  not  fulfil 
Christ's  teaching,  they  generally  say,  will  fulfil  every- 
thing, will  give  away  what  I  have,  will  offer  my  cheek, 
without  defending  myself,  and  will  not  even  agree  to 
swearing  and  making  war,  I  shall  be  robbed  of  every- 
thing, and  if  I  do  not  die  of  hunger,  they  will  beat  me  to 
death,  and  if  they  do  not  beat  me  to  death,  they  will  put 
me  in  prison  or  shoot  me,  and  I  shall  without  a  cause 
ruin  the  happiness  of  my  life  and  my  life  itself. 

This  retort  is  based  on  the  same  misunderstanding  on 
which  is  based  the  objection  of  the  impracticableness 
of  Christ's  teaching. 

Thus  people  generally  speak,  and  thus  thought  I  before 
I  completely  freed  myself  of  the  church  doctrine,  and 
before  I,  consequently,  understood  Christ's  teaching  about 
life  in  its  whole  significance. 

Christ  offers  his  teaching  about  life  as  a  salvation  from 
that  perishable  life  which  men  Live  who  do  not  follow 
his  teaching,  and  suddenly  I  say  that  I  should  be  glad 
to  follow  his  teaching,  but  that  I  am  sorry  to  ruin  my 
life.  Christ  teaches  the  salvation  from  a  perishable  life, 
and  I  pity  this  perishable  life.     Consequently,  I  do  not 

112 


MY    RELIGION  113 

consider  thi-s  life  at  all  perishable,  but  something  real, 
something  belonging  to  me  and  good.  In  this  assumption 
of  this  worldly,  personal  life  as  something  real  and  be- 
longing to  me,  lies  the  misunderstanding  which  prevents 
people  from  understanding  Christ's  teaching.  Christ 
knows  this  delusion  of  people,  by  which  they  regard  their 
personal  life  as  something  real  and  belonging  to  themselves, 
and  shows  them  in  a  whole  series  of  sermons  and  parables 
that  they  have  no  right  to  life,  and  that  they  have  no  life 
until  they  have  obtained  the  true  life,  having  renounced 
the  phantom  of  life,  of  what  they  call  their  life. 

In  order  that  we  may  understand  Christ's  teaching 
about  the  salvation  of  life,  we  must  first  of  all  under- 
stand what  all  the  prophets  have  said,  what  Solomon 
said,  what  Buddha .  said,  what  all  the  sages  of  the  world 
have  said  about  the  personal  life  of  man.  It  is  possible, 
according  to  Pascal's  utterance,  not  to  think  of  this,  to 
carry  in  front  of  us  little  screens  which  should  shield 
from  view  the  abyss  of  death,  toward  wliich  we  are 
running ;  but  we  need  only  think  what  the  single  per- 
sonal life  of  man  is,  in  order  that  we  may  be  convinced 
that  this  whole  life,  if  it  is  only  a  personal  life,  has  no 
meaning  whatsoever  for  each  separate  man,  and  that  it  is 
even  an  evil  jest  on  the  heart,  on  the  reason  of  man, 
on  what  there  is  good  in  man.  And  so,  in  order  that 
we  may  understand  Christ's  teaching,  we  must  first  of 
all  regain  our  senses,  bethink  ourselves  to  have  the  /-tera- 
voia  accomplished  in  us,  —  of  what,  preaching  his  doctrine, 
Christ's  predecessor,  John,  said  to  men  who  were  as  mis- 
led as  we  are.  He  says.  First  of  all  repent,  that  is, 
regain  your  senses,  or  else  you  are  lost.  He  says.  The 
axe  is  laid  unto  the  root  of  the  tree,  to  cut  it  down. 
Death  and  destruction  are  here,  near  each  man.  Do  not 
forget  this,  regain  your  senses.  And  Christ,  beginning 
his  sermon,  says,  Bethink  yourselves,  or  else  you  will 
all  perish. 


114  MY   RELIGION 

Luke  xiii.  1-5  :  Christ  is  told  of  the  destruction  of  the 
GaHleans  killed  by  Pilate.  And  he  says,  Suppose  ye  that 
these  Galileans  were  sinners  above  all  the  GaHleans,  be- 
cause they  suffered  such  things  ?  I  tell  you,  Nay :  but, 
except  ye  repent,  ye  shall  all  likewise  perish.  Or  those 
eighteen,  upon  whom  the  tower  in  Siloam  fell,  and  slew 
them,  tliink  ye  that  they  were  sinners  above  all  men  that 
dwelt  in  Jerusalem  ?  I  tell  you,  Nay :  but,  except  ye 
repent,  ye  shall  all  likewise  perish. 

If  he  lived  at  the  present  time  in  Russia,  he  would  say. 
Do  you  think  that  those  who  were  burned  in  the  circus 
at  Berdichev  or  who  perished  on  the  Kukuev  Rampart 
were  more  guilty  than  the  rest  ?  You  will  all  perish  in 
the  same  way,  if  you  do  not  find  in  your  life  that  which 
does  not  perish.  The  death  of  those  who  were  crushed 
by  the  tower  and  who  were  burned  in  the  circus  terrifies 
you,  but  your  death,  just  as  terrible  and  just  as  inevitable, 
stands  just  as  much  before  you,  and  in  vain  do  you  try 
to  forget  it.  When  it  comes  unexpectedly,  it  will  be  still 
more  terrible. 

He  says  (Luke  xii.  54-57),  When  ye  see  a  cloud  rise 
out  of  the  west,  straightway  ye  say,  There  cometh  a 
shower ;  and  so  it  is.  And  when  ye  see  the  south  wind 
blow,  ye  say.  There  will  be  heat ;  and  it  cometh  to  pass. 
Ye  hypocrites,  ye  can  discern  the  face  of  the  sky  and  of 
the  earth  ;  but  how  is  it  that  ye  do  not  discern  this  time  ? 
Yea,  and  why  even  of  yourselves  judge  ye  not  what  is 
right  ? 

By  tokens  you  tell  in  advance  what  the  weather  will 
be,  so  how  is  it  that  you  do  not  see  what  will  happen  with 
you  ?  Run  away  from  danger,  guard  thy  life  as  much  as 
thou  wilt,  and  yet  either  Pilate  will  kill  thee,  or  the  tower 
crush  thee,  and  if  not  Pilate  and  not  the  tower,  thou  wilt 
die  in  thy  bed  in  worse  agony. 

Calculate  in  a  simple  way,  as  people  do  when  they 
undertake  something,  when  they  build  a  tower,  go  to  war, 


MY    RELIGION  115 

or  build  a  factory.     They  undertake  and  work  over  that 
which  must  have  a  rational  end, 

Luke  xiv.  28-31 :  For  which  of  you  intending  to  build 
a  tower,  sitteth  not  down  first,  and  counteth  the  cost, 
whether  he  have  sufficient  to  finish  it  ?  Lest  haply  after 
he  hath  laid  the  foundation,  and  is  not  able  to  finish  it, 
all  that  behold  it  begin  to  mock  him.  Saying,  This  man 
began  to  build,  and  was  not  able  to  finish.  Or  what  king 
going  to  make  war  against  another  king,  sitteth  not  down 
first,  and  consulteth  whether  he  be  able  with  ten  thou- 
sand to  meet  him  that  cometh  against  him  with  twenty 
thousand  ? 

Is  it  not  senseless  to  work  over  that  which,  no  matter 
how  much  thou  mayest  try,  will  never  be  finished  ? 
Death  will  always  come  earlier  than  the  tower  of  thy 
worldly  happiness  will  be  finished.  And  if  thou  knowest 
in  advance  that,  no  matter  how  much  thou  mayest  strug- 
gle with  death,  not  thou  wilt  conquer  death,  but  death 
will  conquer  thee,  is  it  not  better  not  to  struggle  with  it 
and  not  to  put  thy  soul  into  what  will  certainly  perish 
and  to  seek  some  work  which  will  not  be  destroyed  by 
inevitable  death  ? 

Luke  xii.  22-27  :  And  he  said  unto  his  disciples.  There- 
fore I  say  unto  you.  Take  no  thought  for  your  life,  what 
ye  shall  eat ;  neither  for  the  body,  what  ye  shall  put  on. 
The  life  is  more  than  meat,  and  the  body  is  more  than 
raiment.  Consider  the  ravens :  for  they  neither  sow  nor 
reap ;  which  neither  have  storehouse  nor  barn ;  and  God 
feedeth  them :  how  much  more  are  ye  better  than  the 
fowls?  And  which  of  you  with  taking  thought  can  add 
to  his  stature  one  cubit  ?  If  ye  then  be  not  able  to  do 
that  thing  which  is  least,  why  take  ye  thought  for 
the  rest  ?  Consider  the  lilies  how  they  grow :  they 
toil  not,  they  spin  not;  and  yet  I  say  unto  you, 
that  Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was  not  arrayed  like  one  of 
these. 


116  MY    RELIGION 

No  matter  how  much  you  may  care  for  your  body  and 
your  food,  you  cannot  add  one  hour  ^  to  your  Hfe.  Is  it, 
then,  not  senseless  to  care  for  what  you  cannot  do  ? 

You  know  full  well  that  your  life  will  end  in  death, 
and  you  are  concerned  about  securing  your  life  by  means 
of  possessions.  You  must  understand  that  this  is  a  ridic- 
ulous deception,  with  which  you  deceive  yourselves. 

There  can  be  no  meaning  of  life,  says  Christ,  in  what 
we  possess  and  what  we  acquire,  in  which  we  are  not  our- 
selves ;  it  must  be  in  sometliing  else. 

He  says  (Luke  xii.  16-21) :  A  man's  life  consisteth  not 
in  the  abundance  of  the  things  which  he  possesseth.  And 
he  spake  a  parable  unto  them,  saying,  The  ground  of  a 
certain  rich  man  brought  forth  plentifully  :  and  he  thought 
within  himself,  saying.  What  shall  I  do,  because  I  have 
no  room  where  to  bestow  my  fruits  ?  And  he  said, 
This  will  I  do :  I  will  pull  down  my  barns,  and  build 
greater ;  and  there  will  I  bestow  all  my  fruits  and  my 
goods.  And  I  will  say  to  my  soul,  Soul,  thou  hast  much 
goods  laid  up  for  many  years ;  take  thine  ease,  eat,  drink, 
and  be  merry.  But  God  said  unto  him,  Thou  fool,  this 
night  thy  soul  shall  l;)e  required  of  thee :  then  whose  shall 
those  things  be,  which  thou  hast  provided  ?  So  is  he 
that  layeth  up  treasure  for  himself,  and  is  not  rich  toward 
God. 

Death  stands  over  you  every  moment,  and  so  (Luke 
xii.  35,  36,  38-40):  Let  your  loins  be  girded  about,  and 
your  lights  burning ;  and  ye  yourselves  like  unto  men 
that  wait  for  their  lord,  when  he  will  return  from  the 
wedding ;  that,  when  he  cometh  and  knocketh,  they  may 
open  unto  him  immediately.  And  if  he  shall  come  in  the 
second  watch,  or  come  in  the  third  watch,  and  find  them 
so,  blessed  are  those  servants.    And  this  know,  that  if  the 

1  These  words  are  incorrectly  translated  :  the  word  ijXiKia  means 
age,  time  of  life :  and  so  the  wliole  expression  means,  You  cannot 
add  an  hour  to  your  life.  — Author's  Note. 


MY   RELIGION  117 

goodman  of  tlie  house  had  known  what  hour  the  thief 
would  come,  he  would  have  watched,  and  not  have  suffered 
his  house  to  be  broken  through.  Be  ye  therefore  ready 
also :  for  the  Son  of  man  cometh  at  an  hour  when  ye 
think  not. 

The  parable  of  the  virgins  waiting  for  the  bridegroom, 
the  end  of  the  world,  and  the  terrible  judgment,  —  all 
those  places,  according  to  the  opinion  of  all  commentators, 
have,  in  addition  to  the  meaning  of  the  end  of  the  world, 
also  the  meaning  of  death  which  always,  at  every  hour, 
awaits  man. 

Death,  death,  death  awaits  you  every  second.  Your 
life  is  accomplished  with  death  in  view.  If  you  work 
personally  for  yourself  in  the  future,  you  know  yourself 
that  in  the  future  there  is  but  one  thing  for  you,  —  death. 
This  death  destroys  everything  which  you  have  worked 
for.  Consequently,  life  cannot  have  any  meaning  in 
itself.  If  there  is  a  rational  life,  it  must  be  different,  that 
is,  such  that  the  aim  of  it  is  not  life  for  oneself  in  the 
future.  To  live  rationally  we  must  live  in  such  a  way 
that  death  cannot  destroy  life. 

Luke  X.  41  and  42 :  Martha,  Martha,  thou  art  careful 
and  troubled  about  many  things :  but  one  thing  is  needful. 

All  those  endless  deeds  which  we  do  for  ourselves  in 
the  future  are  not  necessary  for  ourselves :  all  that  is  a 
deception  with  which  we  deceive  ourselves.  Only  one 
thing  is  needful. 

From  the  day  of  birth  the  state  of  man  is  such  that 
inevitable  ruin,  that  is,  senseless  life  and  senseless  death, 
awaits  him,  if  he  does  not  find  that  one  thing  which  he 
needs  for  the  true  life.  This  one  thing,  which  gives  the 
true  life,  Christ  reveals  to  men.  He  does  not  invent  it  and 
does  not  promise  to  give  it  by  his  divine  power ;  he  only 
shows  men  that  together  with  that  personal  hfe,  which  is 
an  unquestionable  deception,  there  must  be  that  which 
is  the  truth,  and  not  a  deception. 


118  MY    RELIGION 

By  the  parable  of  the  husbaudmen  of  the  vineyard 
(Matt.  xxi.  33-42)  Christ  elucidates  this  source  of  the 
delusion  of  men,  which  conceals  this  truth  from  them 
and  compels  them  to  accept  the  phantom  of  life,  their 
personal  life,  for  the  true  hfe. 

Men,  living  in  the  master's  well-cared  garden,  have 
come  to  imagine  that  they  are  the  owners  of  this  garden. 
And  from  this  false  representation  there  results  a  series  of 
senseless  and  cruel  acts  of  these  men,  which  ends  in  their 
expulsion,  their  exclusion  from  life ;  even  so  we  have 
imagined  that  the  life  of  each  one  of  us  is  our  personal 
possession,  and  that  we  have  the  right  to  it  and  may  use 
it  as  we  please,  without  being  under  any  obligations  to 
any  one.  And  for  us,  who  have  imagined  this,  such  a 
series  of  senseless  and  cruel  acts  and  misfortunes  and 
such  an  exclusion  from  life  are  just  as  inevitable.  And 
as  it  seems  to  the  husbandmen  that  the  fiercer  they  are 
the  better  they  will  secure  themselves,  —  and  kill  the 
messengers  and  the  master's  son,  —  even  so  it  seems  to 
us  that  the  fiercer  we  shall  be  the  better  we  shall  secure 
ourselves. 

Just  as  the  husbandmen  inevitably  fare  badly  in  that 
the  master  drives  away  those  who  are  not  giving  to  any 
one  the  fruits  of  the  garden,  even  so  fare  people  who 
imagine  that  the  personal  life  is  the  real  hfe.  Death 
drives  them  out  of  Hfe,  putting  new  men  in  their  place, 
not  as  a  punishment,  but  because  the  first  did  not  under- 
stand hfe.  As  the  inhabitants  of  the  garden  either  forgot, 
or  did  not  know,  that  the  garden  was  turned  over  to  them 
all  dug  up,  fenced  in,  and  with  a  good  well,  and  that  some 
one  had  worked  for  them  and  so  expected  work  from 
them:  even  so  men  who  hve  a  personal  life  have  for- 
gotten, or  wish  to  forget,  everything  that  was  done  for 
them  before  their  birth  and  that  is  being  done  during  the 
whole  time  of  their  life,  and  what,  therefore,  is  expected 
of  them :  they  wish  to  forget  that  all  the  benefits  of  life 


MY    RELIGION  119 

which  they  enjoy  are  given  to  them,  and  so  must  be  trans- 
ferred and  given  back. 

Tliis  correction  of  the  view  of  hfe,  this  fierdvoia,  is  the 
corner-stone  of  Christ's  teaching,  as  he  himself  said  at  the 
end  of  this  parable.  According  to  Christ's  teaching,  just 
as  the  husbandmen,  living  in  the  garden  which  is  not  pre- 
pared by  them,  must  understand  and  feel  that  they  are  in 
insolvable  indebtedness  to  their  master,  so  men  must 
understand  and  feel  that,  from  the  day  of  their  birth  to 
their  death,  they  are  always  in  insolvable  indebtedness 
to  those  who  lived  before  them  and  now  live  and  will  live 
later,  and  to  that  which  was  and  is  and  will  be  the  begin- 
ning of  everything.  They  must  understand  that  by  every 
hour  of  their  life,  during  which  they  do  not  cease  this  hfe, 
they  confirm  this  obligation,  and  that,  therefore,  a  man 
who  lives  for  himself  and  denies  this  obligation,  which 
binds  him  with  life  and  its  beginning,  deprives  himself  of 
life ;  he  must  understand  that,  living  in  this  manner,  he, 
though  wishing  to  preserve  life,  ruins  it,  —  precisely  what 
Christ  repeated  so  many  times. 

The  true  life  is  only  the  one  which  continues  the  past 
life  and  which  cooperates  with  the  good  of  the  contem- 
porary life  and  with  that  of  the  future  hfe. 

To  be  a  participant  in  this  life,  a  man  must  renounce 
his  will  for  the  purpose  of  fulfilling  the  will  of  the  Father 
of  life,  who  gave  it  to  the  son  of  man. 

The  servant,  who  does  his  own  will  and  not  that  of  the 
master,  does  not  live  eternally  in  the  house  of  the  master; 
but  the  son  who  does  the  will  of  the  Father  lives  for  ever. 
Christ  expresses  the  same  idea  in  another  place  (John 
viii.  35). 

But  the  will  of  the  Father  of  life  is  not  the  hfe  of  a 
separate  individual,  but  of  the  one  son  of  man  who 
lives  in  men ;  and  so  man  preserves  life  only  when 
he  looks  upon  his  life  as  upon  a  pledge,  a  talent, 
givexi  him  by  the  Father,  that  he  may  serve  the  life 


120  MY    KELIGION 

of  all,  when  he  lives  not  for  himself,  but  for  the  son  of 
man. 

Matt.  XXV.  14-46.  A  master  gave  to  each  of  his  serv- 
ants part  of  his  estate  and,  without  saying  anything  to 
them,  left  them  alone.  Some  of  the  servants,  though 
they  had  not  heard  any  command  from  the  master  as  to 
how  to  make  use  of  the  master's  property,  understood  that 
the  property  was  not  theirs,  but  the  master's,  and  that  the 
property  ought  to  be  increased,  and  so  worked  for  the 
master.  And  the  servants  who  worked  for  the  master 
became  the  participants  in  the  master's  hfe,  while  those 
who  did  not  work  were  deprived  even  of  what  was  given 
to  them. 

The  life  of  the  son  of  man  is  given  to  all  men,  and 
they  are  not  told  why  it  is  given  to  them.  Some  men 
understand  that  the  life  is  not  their  property,  but  is  given 
to  them  as  a  gift  and  ought  to  serve  the  life  of  the  son  of 
man,  and  they  live  accordingly.  Others,  under  the  pretext 
that  they  do  not  understand  the  aim  of  life,  do  not  serve 
life.  And  the  men  who  serve  life  unite  with  the  source 
of  life,  and  the  men  who  do  not  serve  life  are  deprived  of 
it.  And  so,  from  Verse  31  to  Verse  46,  Christ  tells  about 
what  the  serving  of  the  son  of  man  consists  in  and  about 
what  the  reward  for  this  service  will  be.  The  son  of  man, 
according  to  Christ's  expression,  will  say,  like  a  king, 
Come,  you  blessed  of  my  Father,  inherit  the  kingdom  for 
liaving  given  me  drink  and  meat,  and  having  dressed  me, 
taken  me  in,  and  consoled  me,  for  I  am  one  and  the 
same  in  you  and  in  these  little  ones,  whom  you  pitied  and 
treated  well.  You  have  lived,  not  the  personal  hfe,  but 
the  life  of  the  son  of  man,  and  so  you  have  the  eternal 
life. 

It  is  only  this  eternal  life  that  Christ  teaches  according 
to  all  the  gospels,  and,  however  strange  it  may  be  to  say 
so  about  Christ,  who  personally  rose  from  the  dead,  and 
promised  to  raise  all  from  the  dead,  Christ  not  only  failed 


MY    RELIGION  121 

to  confirm  the  personal  resurrection  and  immortality  be- 
yond the  grave,  but  even  to  the  reestablishment  of  the 
dead  in  the  kingdom  of  the  Messiah,  which  the  Phari- 
sees had  founded,  he  ascribed  a  meaning  which  excludes 
the  conception  of  a  personal  resurrection. 

The  Sadducees  disputed  the  reestablishment  of  the 
dead. 

The  Pharisees  acknowledged  it,  just  as  the  orthodox 
Jews  recognize  it  nowadays. 

The  reestabhshment  of  the  dead  (and  not  the  resur- 
rection, as  the  word  is  improperly  translated),  according 
to  the  behef  of  the  Jews,  will  take  place  at  the  coming 
of  the  time  of  the  Messiah  and  the  establishment  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  upon  earth.  And  so  Christ,  meeting 
with  this  belief  in  the  temporal,  spatial,  and  carnal  resur- 
rection, denies  it,  and  in  its  place  puts  his  teaching  of  the 
reestabhshment  of  the  eternal  life  in  God. 

When  tlie  Sadducees,  who  do  not  acknowledge  the 
reestablishment  of  the  dead,  ask  Christ,  assuming  that  he 
will  share  the  conception  of  the  Pharisees,  Whose  will 
the  wife  of  seven  brothers  be  ?  he  gives  a  clear  and 
definite  answer. 

He  says  (Matt.  xxii.  29-32  ;  Mark  xii.  24-27 ;  Luke 
XX.  34-38),  You  are  mistaken,  for  you  do  not  understand 
the  Scripture  and  the  power  of  God.  And,  rejecting  the 
conception  of  the  Pharisees,  he  says,  The  reestablishment 
from  the  dead  is  not  carnal  and  not  personal.  Those 
who  arrive  at  the  reestablishment  from  the  dead  become 
the  sons  of  God  and  live  like  angels  (the  power  of  God) 
in  heaven  (that  is,  with  God),  and  for  them  there  cannot 
exist  personal  questions,  such  as,  whose  wife  she  is,  for, 
in  uniting  with  God,  they  cease  being  personalities.  But 
as  to  there  existing  a  reestablishment  from  the  dead,  he 
says,  retorting  to  the  Sadducees,  who  acknowledge  only 
an  earthly  existence  and  nothing  but  a  carnal  earthly 
life,  Have  you   not  read  what  God  has  told  you  ?      In 


122  MY    RELIGION 

the  Scripture  it  says  that  God  told  Moses  in  the  burning 
bush,  I  am  the  God  of  Abraham,  the  God  of  Isaac,  the 
God  of  Jacob.  If  God  said  to  Moses  that  he  was  the  God 
of  Jacob,  Jacob  is  not  dead  for  God,  for  God  is  the 
God  of  the  living  only,  and  not  of  the  dead.  For  God  all 
are  living.  And  so,  if  there  is  a  li\^ng  God,  then  that 
man  lives  who  has  entered  into  communion  with  the 
eternally  living  God. 

Christ  says  against  the  Pharisees  that  the  reestablish- 
ment  of  life  cannot  be  carnal  or  personal.  Against  the 
Sadducees  he  says  that  besides  the  personal  and  the  tem- 
poral life  there  is  also  a  life  in  the  communion  with  God. 

In  denying  the  personal,  carnal  resurrection,  Christ 
recognizes  the  reestablishment  of  hfe  in  that  man  transfers 
his  life  into  God.  Christ  teaches  the  salvation  from  the 
personal  life  and  assumes  this  salvation  in  the  exaltation 
of  the  son  of  man  and  of  life  in  God.  Uniting  this  teach- 
ing of  his  with  the  doctrine  of  the  Jews  about  the  coming 
of  the  Messiah,  he  speaks  to  the  Jews  of  the  reestablish- 
ment of  the  son  of  man  from  the  dead,  meaning  by  this 
not  the  carnal  and  personal  reestablishment  of  the  dead, 
but  the  awakening  of  hfe  in  God.  But  of  the  car- 
nal, personal  resurrection  he  never  spoke.  As  the  best 
proof  that  Christ  never  preached  the  resurrection  of  men 
serve  those  two  only  passages  which  are  adduced  by  the 
theologians  in  confirmation  of  his  doctrine  of  the  resurrec- 
tion. These  two  passages  are:  Matt,  xxv,  31-46  and 
John  V.  28  and  29.  The  first  speaks  of  the  coming,  that 
is,  the  reestablishment,  the  exaltation  of  the  son  of  man 
(just  as  it  is  mentioned  in  Matt.  x.  23),  and  then  the  great- 
ness and  power  of  the  sou  of  man  is  compared  with  a 
king.  The  second  passage  speaks  of  the  reestablishment 
of  the  true  life  here  upon  earth,  as  this  is  expressed  in  the 
preceding  24th  verse. 

We  need  only  try  to  grasp  the  meaning  of  Christ's 
teaching  about  the  eternal  life  in  God,  and  to  reestablish 


MY    RELIGION  123 

in  our  imagination  the  doctrine  of  the  Jewish  prophets,  in 
order  that  we  may  understand  that,  if  Christ  wanted  to 
preach  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  which 
just  then  began  to  enter  into  the  Talmud  and  was  a  sub- 
ject of  dispute,  he  would  have  expressed  tliis  doctrine 
clearly  and  definitely  ;  he,  on  the  contrary,  not  only  failed 
to  do  so,  but  even  rejected  it,  and  in  all  the  gospels  it 
is  impossible  to  find  a  single  passage  which  would  confirm 
this  doctrine.  But  the  above  quoted  two  passages  signify 
something  very  different. 

Of  his  own  personal  resurrection,  no  matter  how  strange 
this  may  appear  to  those  wlio  have  not  studied  the  gospels, 
Christ  has  never  spoken  anywhere.  If,  as  the  theologians 
teach,  the  foundation  of  the  belief  in  Christ  consists  in 
this,  that  Christ  rose  from  the  dead,  —  the  least  we  may 
expect  would  be  that  Christ,  knowing  that  he  would  rise 
from  the  dead,  and  that  in  this  the  cliief  dogma  of  the 
faith  in  him  would  consist,  would  say  so  clearly  and 
definitely  at  least  once.  But  he  not  only  did  not  say  so 
clearly  and  definitely  even  once ;  according  to  the  canoni- 
cal gospels  he  not  even  once  made  any  reference  to  it. 
Christ's  teaching  is  this,  that  we  should  exalt  the  son  of 
man,  that  is,  the  essence  of  the  life  of  man,  —  to  recognize 
ourselves  as  sons  of  God.  Christ  personifies  in  himself 
the  man  who  has  recognized  his  filial  relation  to  God 
(Matt.  xvi.  13-20).  He  asks  his  disciples  what  men  say  of 
him,  the  son  of  man.  The  disciples  say  that  some  regard 
him  as  John  miraculously  risen  from  the  dead,  or  as  a 
prophet,  and  others,  as  Elijah  who  has  come  down  from 
heaven.  And  how  do  you  understand  me  ?  he  asks. 
And  Peter,  understanding  Christ  as  he  understood  himself, 
replies,  Thou  art  the  Messiah,  the  son  of  the  living  God. 
And  Christ  says.  Not  the  flesh  and  blood  have  revea,led 
this  to  thee,  but  our  Father  in  heaven,  that  is,  Thou  hast 
comprehended  this,  not  because  thou  hast  believed  the 
human  interpretations,  but  because,  recognizing  thyself 


124  MY    RELIGION 

as  the  son  of  God,  thou  hast  comprehended  me.  And, 
having  explained  to  Peter  that  on  this  filial  relation  to 
God  the  true  faith  is  based,  Christ  says  to  his  disciples 
(20)  that  they  should  not  henceforth  say  that  he,  Jesus, 
was  the  Messiah. 

After  this  Christ  says  that,  although  they  would  torture 
and  kill  him,  the  son  of  God,  having  acknowledged  him- 
self to  be  a  son  of  God,  will  none  the  less  be  reestablished 
and  will  triumph  over  everything.  And  it  is  these 
words  that  are  interpreted  as  a  pretUction  of  his  resurrec- 
tion. 

John  ii.  19-22 ;  Matt.  xii.  40 ;  Luke  xi.  30  ;  Matt.  xvi. 
4,  21  ;  Mark  viii.  31 ;  Luke  ix.  22  ;  Matt.  xvii.  23  ;  Mark 
ix.  31  ;  Matt.  xx.  19  ;  Mark  x.  34 ;  Luke  xviii.  33  ;  Matt. 
xxvi.  32  ;  Mark  xiv.  28.  These  are  all  the  fourteen  places 
which  are  understood  to  mean  that  Christ  predicted  his 
resurrection.  In  three  of  these  places  reference  is  made 
to  Jonah  in  the  belly  of  the  whale,  and  in  one  to  the  re- 
establishment  of  the  temple.  In  the  remaining  ten 
places  it  says  that  the  son  of  man  cannot  be  destroyed  ; 
but  nowhere  is  there  one  word  in  respect  to  the  resurrec- 
tion of  Jesus  Christ. 

In  all  these  passages  there  is  not  even  the  word  resur- 
rection in  the  original.  Give  to  a  man  who  does  not  know 
the  theological  interpretations,  but  who  knows  Greek, 
all  these  passages  to  translate,  and  never  will  one  trans- 
late them  as  they  are  translated.  In  the  original  we  have 
here  two  different  words  avicTi]ixi  and  iiyeipo).  One  of 
these  words  means  to  raise  up  (reestabhsh) ;  the  other 
means  to  ivake,  and  in  the  middle  voice  to  wake  uj),  get  up. 
But  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  can  under  any  con- 
sideration mean  to  raise  from  the  dead.  To  convince  our- 
selves fully  that  these  Greek  words  and  the  Hebrew  kum, 
which  corresponds  to  them,  cannot  mean  to  raise  from  the 
dead,  we  need  only  compare  those  passages  of  the  Gospel 
where  these  words  are  used :  they  are  used  a  great  num- 


MY   RELIGION  125 

ber  of  times,  and  not  once  are  they  translated  by  to  raise 
from  the  dead,  auferstelien,  ressusciter :  such  words  do  not 
exist  either  in  the  Greek  or  the  Hebrew  language,  even 
as  the  corresponding  conceptions  are  wanting.  In  order 
to  express  in  Greek  or  in  Hebrew  the  conception  of  the 
resurrection,  a  paraphrase  is  needed :  we  have  to  say  rose, 
or  woke,  from  the  dead.  Even  so  it  says  in  Luke  xvi.  31, 
in  the  parable  of  Lazarus,  that  if  one  rose  from  the  dead, 
he  would  not  be  believed.  But  where  the  words  from 
the  dead  are  not  added  to  rise  and  wake,  we  have  not  the 
idea  of  the  resurrection.  Speaking  of  himself,  Christ 
never,  not  even  once  in  all  the  passages  which  are  quoted 
in  proof  of  his  prediction  that  he  would  rise  from  the 
dead,  uses  the  words  from  the  dead. 

Our  conception  of  the  resurrection  is  to  such  a  degree 
foreign  to  the  ideas  of  Jews  about  life  that  we  cannot 
even  imagine  how  Christ  could  have  spoken  to  the  Jews 
of  the  resurrection  and  of  the  eternal,  personal  life  which 
is  peculiar  to  each  man.  The  conception  of  the  future 
personal  life  did  not  come  to  us  from  the  Jewish  teaching, 
nor  from  Christ's  teaching.  It  has  entered  the  doctrine 
of  the  church  from  an  entirely  different  source.  However 
strange  it  may  appear,  we  cannot  help  but  say  that  the 
belief  in  the  future  personal  life  is  a  very  low  and  gross 
conception,  which  is  based  on  the  confusion  of  sleep  with 
death,  and  which  is  peculiar  to  all  savages,  and  that  the 
Jewish  teaching,  not  to  speak  of  the  Christian  teaching, 
stood  incomparably  higher  than  that.  We  are  so  con- 
vinced that  this  superstition  is  something  very  elevated 
that  we  most  seriously  prove  the  superiority  of  our  teach- 
ing over  the  others  by  the  very  fact  that  we  hold  to  this 
superstition,  while  others,  like  the  Chinese  and  the  Hin- 
doos, do  not  keep  it.  This  is  proved  not  only  by  the 
theologians,  but  also  by  the  freethinking  learned  his- 
torians of  religion,  by  Tiele  and  Max  Miiller,  and  others  ; 
in  classifying  the  religions,  they  acknowledge  that  those 


126 


MY    EELIGION 


who  share  this  superstition  are  higher  than  those  who  do 
not  share  it.  The  freethinking  Schopenhauer  in  so  many 
words  calls  the  Jewish  religion  the  most  contemptible 
(niedcrtrachtigste)  of  all  religions  because  there  is  not  in 
it  an  idea  {keine  Idee)  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 

In  reality,  in  the  Jewish  religion  there  was  not  even 
such  a  conception  or  word.  The  eternal  life  is  in  Hebrew 
khaye-olam.  Olam  means  what  is  infinite,  imperturbable 
in  time  ;  it  means  also  the  loorld,  cosmos.  Life  in  general, 
and  so  much  the  more  the  eternal  hfe,  khaye-olam,  is, 
according  to  the  teaching  of  the  Jews,  peculiar  to  God 
alone.  God  is  the  God  of  hfe,  God  is  ahve.  Man,  accord- 
ing to  the  conception  of  the  Jews,  is  always  mortal,  and 
God  alone  lives  always.  In  the  Pentateuch  the  words 
eternal  life  are  used  twice,  once  in  Deuteronomy,  the 
other  time  in  Genesis.  In  Deut.  xxxii.  39  and  40  God 
says.  See  now  that  I,  even  I,  am  he,  and  there  is  no  god 
with  me :  I  kill,  and  I  make  alive ;  I  wound,  and  I  heal : 
neither  is  there  any  that  can  deliver  out  of  my  hand.  For 
I  lift  up  my  hand  to  heaven,  and  say,  I  live  for  ever. 
The  second  time,  in  Gen.  iii.  22:  God  says,  Man  has 
eaten  of  the  fruit  from  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good 
and  evil,  and  has  become  as  one  of  us ;  he  may  stretch 
out  his  hands  and  take  of  the  tree  of  life,  and  eat,  and 
live  for  ever.  These  are  the  only  two  cases  of  the  use 
of  the  words  eternal  life  in  the  Pentateuch  and  in  the 
whole  Old  Testament  (with  the  exception  of  one  chapter 
of  the  apocryphal  Daniel)  which  clearly  define  the  con- 
ception of  the  Jews  concerning  life  in  general  and  the 
eternal  life.  Life  in  itself  is,  according  to  the  conception 
of  the  Jews,  eternal,  and  such  it  is  in  God ;  but  man  is 
always  mortal,  such  being  his  property. 

Nowhere  in  the  Old  Testament  is  there  anything  said 
of  what  we  are  taught  in  sacred  histories,  that  God 
breathed  an  immortal  soul  into  man,  or  that  the  first 
man   was  immortal  before  his  fall,     God  created   man. 


MY    RELIGION  127 

according  to  the  first  account  in  Gen.  i.  26,  just  like  the 
animals,  just  like  male  and  female,  and  just  as  he  en- 
joined them  to  fructify  and  multiply.  As  it  does  not  say 
of  the  animals  that  they  are  immortal,  so  it  does  not 
say  so  of  man.  In  the  second  chapter  we  hear  how  man 
learned  of  good  and  evil ;  but  concerning  life  it  says 
openly  that  God  drove  man  out  of  paradise  and  barred 
his  way  to  the  tree  of  life.  Man  did  not  get  a  chance 
to  eat  of  the  tree  of  hfe,  did  not  get  khaye-olam,  that 
is,  the  eternal  life,  but  remained  mortal. 

According  to  the  teaching  of  the  Jews  man  is  precisely 
as  he  is,  that  is,  mortal.  Life  is  in  him  only  as  life  which 
is  preserved  from  generation  to  generation  in  the  nation. 
The  nation  only  has  in  itself  the  possibility  of  hfe. 
When  God  says.  You  shall  live  and  not  die,  he  says  that 
of  the  nation.  The  life  which  God  breathed  into  man  is 
mortal  for  every  individual  man :  but  this  hfe  is  con- 
tinued from  generation  to  generation,  if  men  fulfil  the 
covenant  with  God,  that  is,  the  conditions  which  are  laid 
down  for  the  purpose  by  God. 

After  expounding  all  the  laws,  and  saying  that  these 
laws  are  not  in  heaven,  but  in  their  hearts,  Moses  says  in 
Deut.  XXX.  15  and  16:  See,  I  have  set  before  you  this 
day  life  and  good,  and  death  and  evil,  commanding  you 
to  love  God  and  walk  his  ways,  keeping  his  law,  that  you 
may  retain  life.  And  Verses  19  and  20  :  I  call  heaven 
and  earth  to  record  this  day  against  you,  that  I  have  set 
before  you  life  and  death,  blessing  and  cursing :  therefore 
choose  life,  that  both  thou  and  thy  seed  may  live :  That 
thou  mayest  love  the  Lord  thy  God,  and  that  thou  may- 
est  obey  his  voice,  and  that  thou  mayest  cleave  unto  him 
(for  he  is  thy  life,  and  the  length  of  thy  days). 

The  chief  distinction  between  our  conception  of  the 
human  life  and  that  of  the  Jews  consists  in  this,  that 
according  to  our  conceptions  our  mortal  life,  which  passes 
from  generation  to  generation,  is  not  the  real  life,  but  a 


128  MY    EELIGION 

fallen  life,  which  for  some  reason  is  temporarily  cor- 
rupted ;  but  according  to  the  conception  of  the  Jews,  this 
life  is  real,  and  the  highest  good  is  given  to  man  under 
the  condition  of  fulfilling  God's  will.  From  our  stand- 
point the  transition  of  this  fallen  life  from  generation  to 
generation  is  a  continuation  of  the  curse.  From  the 
standpoint  of  the  Jews  it  is  the  highest  good  which  man 
can  obtain,  and  that,  too,  only  by  fulfilhng  the  will  of  God. 

It  is  on  this  conception  of  life  that  Christ  bases  his 
teaching  of  the  true,  or  eternal,  life,  which  he  opposes 
to  the  personal  and  mortal  life.  Search  the  Scriptures, 
Christ  says  to  the  Jews  (John  v.  39),  for  through  them 
you  think  you  have  eternal  life. 

A  young  man  asks  Christ  (Matt.  xix.  16)  how  he 
may  have  eternal  life.  In  replying  to  his  question  about 
the  eternal  life,  Christ  says.  If  thou  wilt  enter  into  life 
(he  does  not  say  eternal  life,  but  simply  life)  keep  the 
commandments.  The  same  he  says  to  the  lawyer  (Luke 
X.  28) :  This  do,  and  thou  shalt  hve,  and  again  he  says 
live,  and  not  live  for  ever.  In  either  case  Christ  defines 
what  is  to  be  understood  by  the  words  eternal  life  ;  when- 
ever he  uses  these  words,  he  tells  the  Jews  what  is  sev- 
eral times  said  in  their  law,  namely  :  the  fulfilment  of 
the  will  of  God  is  the  eternal  life. 

In  opposition  to  the  temporal,  private,  personal  life 
Christ  teaches  that  eternal  life  which  God,  according  to 
Deuteronomy,  promised  to  Israel,  but  with  this  difference 
that,  according  to  the  conception  of  the  Jews,  the  eternal 
life  was  continued  only  in  the  chosen  people  of  Israel, 
and  that  to  obtain  this  life  it  was  only  necessary  to  keep 
God's  exclusive  laws  for  the  Israelites,  while,  according  to 
Christ's  teaching,  the  eternal  life  is  continued  in  the  son 
of  man,  and  for  its  preservation  we  must  observe  the  laws 
of  Christ,  which  express  the  will  of  God  for  all  humanity. 

Christ  opposes  to  the  personal  life  not  the  life  beyond 
the  grave,  but  the  general  life,  which  is  united  with  the 


MY    RELIGION  129 

present,  past,  and  future  life  of  all  humanity,  —  the  life 
of  the  son  of  man. 

The  salvation  of  the  personal  life  from  death  was, 
according  to  the  teaching  of  the  Jews,  the  fulfilment  of 
the  will  of  God,  as  expressed  in  the  law  of  Moses  accord- 
ing to  his  commandments.  Only  under  these  conditions 
did  the  life  of  the  Jews  not  perish,  but  passed  from  gen- 
eration to  generation  in  the  nation  chosen  by  God.  The 
salvation  of  the  personal  life  from  death  is,  according  to 
Christ's  teaching,  the  same  fulfilment  of  God's  will,  as 
expressed  in  Christ's  commandments.  Only  under  this 
condition,  according  to  Christ's  teaching,  does  the  per- 
sonal life  not  perish,  but  become  imperturbably  eternal  in 
the  son  of  man.  The  difference  is  only  this,  that  the  serv- 
ice of  the  God  of  Moses  was  the  service  of  God  by  one 
nation,  while  the  service  of  the  Father  of  Christ  was  the 
service  of  God  by  all  men.  The  continuation  of  life  in 
the  generations  of  one  nation  was  doubtful,  because  the 
nation  itself  might  perish,  and,  also,  because  this  continu- 
ation depended  on  carnal  posterity.  The  continuation  of 
life,  according  to  Christ's  teaching,  is  transferred  into  the 
son  of  God,  who  lives  according  to  the  will  of  the  Father. 

But  let  us  suppose  that  the  words  of  Christ  about  the 
terrible  judgment  and  the  end  of  the  world,  and  the  other 
words  in  the  Gospel  of  John,  have  the  meaning  of  promis- 
ing a  life  beyond  the  grave  to  the  souls  of  dead  persons, 
it  is  still  unquestionable  that  his  teaching  concernmg 
the  light  of  hfe,  the  kingdom  of  God,  has  also  this  other 
meaning,  intelligible  to  his  hearers  and  now  to  us,  that 
the  true  hfe  is  only  the  hfe  of  the  son  of  man  accord- 
ing to  the  will  of  the  Father.  This  can  be  admitted 
the  more  easily  since  the  teaching  concerning  the  true 
life  according  to  the  will  of  the  Father  of  life  includes 
the  conception  of  the  immortahty  and  the  life  beyond  the 
grave. 

It  may  be    more   correct   to  assume    that    after    this 


130  MY    RELIGION 

worldly  life,  which  is  lived  for  the  fulfilment  of  his  per- 
sonal will,  man  will  none  the  less  receive  an  eternal 
personal  life  in  heaven  with  all  the  possible  joys ;  may  be 
this  is  more  correct,  but  thinking  that  it  is  so,  trying  to 
believe  that  for  good  deeds  I  shall  be  rewarded  with  eter- 
nal bliss,  and  for  bad  deeds  with  eternal  torments,  — 
thiukiug  thus  does  not  help  me  in  the  comprehension  of 
Christ's  teaching ;  thinking  thus  means,  on  the  contrary, 
depriving  Christ's  teaching  of  its  chief  foundation. 

The  whole  teaching  of  Christ  consists  in  this,  that  his 
disciples,  having  comprehended  the  phantasmal  nature  of 
the  personal  life,  should  renounce  it  and  transfer  it  into 
the  life  of  all  humanity,  into  the  life  of  the  son  of  man. 
But  the  teaching  of  the  immortality  of  the  personal  life 
not  only  does  not  call  for  the  renunciation  of  a  man's 
personal  life,  but  for  ever  confirms  this  personality.  * 

According  to  the  conceptions  of  the  Jews,  the  Chinese, 
the  Hindoos,  and  all  men  who  do  not  believe  in  the 
dogma  of  the  fall  of  man  and  his  redemption,  life  is  life, 
such  as  it  is.  Man  copulates,  begets  children,  brings 
them  up,  grows  old,  and  dies.  His  children  grow  up  and 
continue  his  life,  which  is  carried  on  without  interruption 
from  generation  to  generation,  just  as  everything  in  the 
world  is  carried  on,  —  stones,  earth,  metals,  plants,  ani- 
mals, the  luminaries,  and  every  things  in  the  world.  Life 
is  life,  and  we  must  make  use  of  it  in  the  best  manner 
possible.  It  is  irrational  to  live  for  oneself.  And  so, 
ever  since  men  have  existed,  they  have  been  seeking  an 
aim  for  life  outside  themselves  :  they  live  for  their  babe, 
for  their  family,  for  the  nation,  for  humanity,  for  every- 
thing which  does  not  die  with  the  personal  life. 

On  the  contrary,  according  to  the  teaching  of  our 
church,  human  life,  as  the  highest  good  known  to  us,  pre- 
sents itself  only  as  a  particle  of  that  life  which  is  kept 
from  us  but  for  a  little  while.  Our  life,  according  to  our 
conception,  is  not  the  life  which  God  wanted  and  ought 


MT    RELIGION  131 

to  have  given  us,  but  a  corrupt,  bad,  fallen  life,  a  "  sample  " 
of  life,  a  slur  on  the  real  life,  the  one  which  we  for  some 
reason  imagine  God  ought  to  have  given  us.  According 
to  this  representation  the  chief  problem  of  our  life  does 
not  consist  in  passing  the  mortal  life  given  to  us  in  the 
way  in  which  the  giver  of  life  wants  it  passed,  not  in 
making  it  eternal  iu  the  generations  of  men,  as  the  Jews 
teach,  or  by  uniting  it  with  the  will  of  the  Father,  as 
Christ  taught,  but  in  assuring  ourselves  that  after  tliis  life 
the  real  life  will  begin. 

Christ  does  not  speak  of  this  our  putative  life,  which 
God  ought  to  have  given  to  men,  but  for  some  reason 
failed  to  give.  The  theory  of  the  fall  of  Adam  and  of  the 
eternal  life  in  paradise  and  of  the  immortal  soul  breathed 
by  God  into  Adam,  was  unknown  to  Christ,  and  he  did 
not  mention  it  and  did  not  hint  at  its  existence  with  even 
'one  word.     ' 

Christ  speaks  of  life,  such  as  it  is  and  as  it  will  always 
be ;  but  we  speak  of  the  life  which  we  imagine,  and  which 
has  never  existed :  how  can  we  help  understanding  Christ's 
teaching  ? 

Christ  could  not  even  have  imagined  such  a  strange 
conception  in  his  disciples.  He  assumes  that  all  men 
understand  the  inevitableness  of  the  destruction  of  the 
personal  life,  and  reveals  the  imperishable  life.  He  gives 
the  good  to  those  wJio  are  in  evil ;  but  to  those  who  are 
persuaded  that  they  have  much  more  than  what  Christ  can 
give  them,  his  teaching  can  give  nothing.  I  will  admon- 
ish a  man  to  work,  assuring  him  that  he  will  receive  food 
and  raiment  for  it,  and  suddenly  this  man  will  persuade 
himself  that  he  is  a  millionaire  as  it  is ;  it  is  evident  that 
he  will  not  accept  my  admonition.  The  same  takes  place 
with  Christ's  teaching.  Why  should  I  work,  since  I  can 
be  a  rich  man  as  it  is  ?  Why  should  I  try  to  live  this 
life  in  godly  fashion,  since  I  am  convinced  that  without  it 
I  shall  live  a  personal  life  for  ever  ? 


132  MY    RELIGION 

We  are  taught  that  Christ  saved  men  by  this,  that  he  is 
the  second  person  of  the  Trinity,  that  he  is  God  and  be- 
came incarnate,  and  that,  having  taken  upon  himself  the 
sin  of  Adam  and  of  all  men,  he  redeemed  the  sin  of  men 
before  the  first  person  of  the  Trinity  and  established  the 
church  and  the  sacraments  for  our  salvation.  If  we  be- 
lieve in  this,  we  are  saved  and  receive  an  eternal  personal 
life  beyond  the  grave.  But  it  cannot  be  denied  that  he 
has  saved  men  also  by  this,  that,  by  pointing  out  their 
inevitable  destruction,  he,  according  to  his  words,  I  am 
the  way,  the  life,  and  the  truth,  gave  us  the  true  way  of 
life,  in  heu  of  that  false  way  of  the  personal  life  on  which 
we  travelled  before. 

Though  men  may  be  found  who  will  have  their  doubts 
in  the  life  beyond  the  grave  and  in  the  salvation  which  is 
based  on  the  redemption,  there  can  be  no  doubt  in  the 
salvation  of  men,  of  all  together  and  each  separately,  in 
the  indication  of  the  inevitable  destruction  of  the  personal 
life  and  of  the  true  way  of  salvation  in  the  union  of  our 
will  with  the  will  of  the  Father.  Let  every  rational  man 
ask  himself  what  his  life  and  death  are  ?  And  let  him 
ascribe  to  this  life  and  death  any  other  meaning  than  the 
one  which  Christ  has  pointed  out. 

All  theorizing  on  the  meaning  of  the  personal  life  which 
is  not  based  on  the  renunciation  of  self  for  the  purpose  of 
serving  men,  humanity,  the  son  of  man,  is  a  phantom 
which  is  dispersed  at  the  first  touch  of  reason.  I  can  no 
longer  doubt  that  my  personal  life  perishes,  but  the  hfe 
of  the  whole  world  according  to  the  will  of  the  Father 
does  not  perish,  and  only  a  union  with  it  gives  me  the 
possibihty  of  salvation.  But  this  is  so  little  in  compari- 
son with  those  exalted  rehgious  beliefs  in  a  future  life! 
Though  it  is  little,  it  is  correct, 

I  have  lost  my  way  in  a  snow-storm.  One  assures  me, 
and  he  actually  thinks  so,  that  there  they  are,  hghts  and 
a  village ;  but  this  only  seems  so  to  him  and  to  me,  be- 


MY    RELIGION  133 

cause  we  want  it ;  we  walketl  iu  the  direction  of  the 
lights,  but  there  were  none.  Another  man  walked  over 
the  snow ;  he  came  out  on  a  road,  and  shouted  to  us  :  "  Do 
not  go  anywhere,  for  the  lights  are  only  in  your  eyes  ;  you 
will  he  lost  everywhere  and  will  perish,  but  here  is  a  firm 
road,  and  I  am  standing  on  it :  it  will  take  us  somewhere." 
That  is  very  little.  When  we  believed  the  lights  which 
glimmered  in  our  inflamed  eyes,  the  village  was  oh!  so 
near,  and  there  was  a  warm  hut,  and  salvation,  and  rest ; 
but  now  there  is  only  a  firm  road.  But  if  we  listen  to  the 
first  man,  we  shall  certainly  freeze  to  death,  and  if  we  listen 
to  the  second  man,  we  shall  certainly  come  out  all  right. 

So  what  must  I  do,  if  I  am  the  only  one  who  under- 
stands Christ's  teaching  and  believe  in  it,  I  alone  amidst 
those  who  do  not  understand  it  or  fulfil  it  ? 

What  shall  I  do  ?  Shall  I  live  like  all  the  rest,  or 
according  to  Christ's  teaching?  I  understand  Christ's 
teaching  in  its  commandments,  and  I  see  that  their 
observance  gives  bliss  to  me  and  to  all  men  of  the  world. 
I  understand  that  the  keeping  of  these  commandments 
is  the  will  of  that  beginning  of  all,  from  which  my  life 
also  comes. 

I  understand,  besides,  that  no  matter  what  I  may  do,  I 
shall  inevitably  perish  in  a  senseless  life  and  death,  to- 
gether with  all  that  surrounds  me,  if  I  shall  not  fulfil  this 
will  of  the  Father,  and  that  the  only  possibility  of  salva- 
tion lies  only  in  its  execution. 

If  I  do  like  all  men,  I  certainly  counteract  the  good  of 
all  men,  certainly  do  what  is  contrary  to  the  will  of  the 
Father  of  life,  certainly  deprive  myself  of  the  only  possi- 
bihty  of  improving  my  desperate  condition.  In  doing 
what  Christ  teaches  me  I  continue  to  do  what  men  have 
done  for  me :  I  cotjperate  with  the  good  of  all  men  who 
live  now  and  who  will  live  after  me,  and  I  do  what  he 
who  has  produced  me  wants  me  to  do,  and  what  alone 
can  save  me. 


134  MY   RELIGION 

The  circus  in  Berdichev  is  on  fire ;  all  crowd  and 
choke  each  other,  pressing  against  the  door  which  opens 
inward.  A  saviour  appears,  saying :  "  Step  aside  from 
the  door :  Go  back  !  The  more  you  crowd,  the  less  hope 
of  salvation  you  have.  Turn  back,  and  you  will  find  an 
exit  and  salvation."  Whether  many  or  I  alone  heard  it, 
what  difference  does  it  make  ?  But  having  heard  it  and 
believing  it,  I  can  do  nothing  but  go  back  and  call  out 
loud  in  the  name  of  the  saviour.  They  will,  perhaps, 
choke  me  to  death,  or  kill  me ;  but  my  salvation  still  lies 
in  going  where  there  is  the  only  exit.  I  cannot  help  but 
go  there.  The  saviour  must  indeed  be  a  saviour,  that  is, 
he  must  indeed  save.  And  the  salvation  of  Christ  is 
indeed  a  salvation.  He  made  his  appearance  and  spoke, 
and  humanity  is  saved. 

The  circus  has  been  on  fire  for  an  hour,  and  we  have 
to  be  in  a  hurry,  and  men  may  fail  to  be  saved.  But  the 
world  has  been  burning  for  eighteen  hundred  years,  ever 
since  Christ  said,  I  have  brought  the  fire  down  upon  earth, 
and  how  my  soul  pines  until  it  burns  up,  —  and  it  will 
burn  until  men  will  be  saved.  Are  there  not  men,  and 
does  it  not  burn,  in  order  that  men  may  have  the  bliss  of 
salvation  ? 

Having  comprehended  this,  I  understood  and  believed 
that  Jesus  was  not  only  the  Messiah,  Christ,  but  also 
indeed  the  saviour  of  the  world. 

I  know  that  there  is  no  other  way  out  for  me,  or  for  all 
those  who  with  me  are  tormented  in  this  life.  I  know 
that  for  all,  and  for  me  with  them,  there  is  no  other  sal- 
vation than  by  keeping  the  commandments  of  Christ, 
which  give  to  all  humanity  a  good  which  is  most  acces- 
sible to  my  understanding. 

I  am  not  terrified  by  the  reflection  that  I  may  have 
more  unpleasantnesses,  or  shall  die  earlier,  by  fulfilling 
Christ's  teaching.  This  may  be  terrible  to  him  who  does 
not  see  how  senseless  and  pernicious  his  own  personal 


I 


MY   RELIGION  135 

single  life  is,  and  who  thinks  that  he  will  not  die.  But 
I  know  that  my  life  for  a  personal  lonely  life  is  the 
greatest  foolishness,  aud  that  after  this  foolish  hfe  I  shall 
certainly  die  as  foolishly.  And  so  I  cannot  be  terrified 
at  all.  I  shall  die  like  all  men,  even  like  those  who  do 
not  fulfil  the  teaching :  hut  my  hfe  and  death  will  have  a 
meaning  for  me  and  for  all  men.  My  life  and  my  death 
will  serve  the  salvation  and  the  life  of  all  men,  and  it  is 
this  that  Christ  taught. 


IX. 

If  all  men  were  to  fulfil  Christ's  teaching,  there  would 
be  the  kingdom  of  God  upon  earth  :  if  I  alone  fulfil  it,  I 
shall  do  the  best  for  all  and  for  myself.  Without  the 
fulfilment  of  Christ's  teaching  there  is  no  salvation. 

But  where  shall  I  take  faith  to  fulfil  it,  always  to  follow 
it,  and  never  to  renounce  it  ?  I  believe,  0  Lord,  help  my 
unbelief. 

The  disciples  asked  Christ  to  confirm  faith  in  them.  I 
want  to  do  good,  and  I  do  evil,  says  Paul  the  Apostle. 

It  is  hard  to  be  saved,  —  so  people  generally  speak  and 
think. 

A  man  is  drowning,  and  he  asks  to  be  saved.  A  rope 
is  thrown  out  to  him,  and  he  may  save  himfeelf  by  it ;  but 
the  drowning  man  says,  Confirm  the  faith  in  me  that  the 
rope  will  save  me.  I  believe,  says  the  man,  that  the  rope 
will  save  me,  but  help  my  unbelief. 

What  does  this  mean  ?  If  a  man  does  not  grasp  that 
which  saves  him,  it  means  only  that  the  man  has  not 
comprehended  his  situation. 

How  can  a  Christian,  who  professes  the  divinity  of 
Christ  and  of  his  teaching,  no  matter  how  he  may  under- 
stand it,  say  that  he  wants  to  believe,  and  cannot  ?  God 
himself,  coming  down  upon  earth,  said,  Eternal  torments, 
fire,  eternal  outer  darkness  await  you,  and  your  salvation 
is  in  my  teacliiug  and  its  fulfilment.  Such  a  Christian 
cannot  help  but  believe  in  the  salvation  offered  him,  and 
fulfil  it,  saying.  Help  my  unbelief. 

In  order  that  a  man  may  be  able  to  say  so,  he  must  not 
only  refrain  from  believing  in  his  destruction,  but  must 
also  believe  that  he  will  not  perish. 

136 


MY    RELIGION  137 

Children  jump  from  a  ship  into  the  water.  Tlie  cur- 
rent, their  dry  clothes,  and  their  feeble  motions  still  bear 
them  up,  aud  they  do  not  understand  their  ruin.  A  rope 
is  thrown  out  to  them  from  the  fleeing  ship.  They  are 
told  that  they  will  certainly  drown,  and  the  people  on  the 
ship  implore  them  (parables  of  the  woman  who  found  a 
farthing,  of  the  shepherd  who  found  the  sheep  gone  astray, 
of  the  prodigal  son,  speak  of  the  same) ;  but  the  children 
do  not  believe  them.  They  fail  to  believe,  not  in  the 
rope,  but  in  their  destruction.  Just  such  frivolous  chil- 
dren, as  they  are,  convince  them  that  they  would  have  a 
pleasant  swim,  even  if  the  ship  got  away  from  them.  The 
children  do  not  believe  that  soon  their  clothes  will  be 
soaked  through,  their  arms  get  tired  of  swimming,  and 
they  will  strangle  and  drown  and  go  to  the  bottom. 
They  do  not  believe  in  this,  and  for  this  reason  alone  do 
not  believe  in  the  rope  of  salvation. 

Just  as  the  children  who  fell  down  from  the  ship  are 
convinced  that  they  will  not  perish,  and  so  do  not  take 
hold  of  the  rope,  so  people  who  profess  the  immortality  of 
the  soul  are  convinced  that  they  will  not  perish,  and  so 
do  not  fulfil  the  teaching  of  Christ  the  God.  They  do  not 
believe  in  what  one  cannot  fail  to  believe,  only  because 
they  believe  in  what  one  cannot  believe. 

And  so  they  call  out  to  some  one,  Confirm  in  us  our 
faith  that  we  shall  not  perish. 

But  that  cannot  be  done.  In  order  that  they  may  have 
faith  in  this,  that  they  will  not  perish,  they  must  cease 
doing  what  destroys  them,  and  must  begin  to  do  what 
saves  them :  they  must  take  hold  of  the  rope  of  salvation. 
They  do  not  wish  to  do  so,  but  want  to  convince  them- 
selves that  they  will  not  perish,  despite  the  fact  that  their 
companions  are  perishing  one  after  the  other  in  their  sight. 
This  desire  to  assure  themselves  of  what  does  not  exist 
they  call  faith.  Naturally  they  have  always  too  little 
faith  and  want  to  have  more. 


138  MY    KELIGION 

When  I  comprehended  Christ's  teaching,  I  understood 
also  that  that  which  these  people  called  faith  was  not  faith, 
and  that  it  was  that  same  false  faith  that  James  the 
Apostle  rejected  in  his  epistle.  (This  epistle  was  for  a 
long  time  not  accepted  by  the  church,  and  when  it  was 
accepted,  it  was  subjected  to  some  distortions :  certain 
words  were  thrown  out  and  others  transposed  or 
wrongly  translated.  I  leave  the  accepted  translation, 
correcting  a  few  inexactnesses  according  to  Tischendorf's 
text.) 

James  ii.  14-24,  26.  What  doth  it  profit,  my  brethren, 
though  a  man  thinks  he  hath  faith,  and  have  not  works  ? 
Faith  cannot  save  him.  If  a  brother  or  sister  be  naked, 
and  destitute  of  daily  food,  and  one  of  you  say  unto 
them.  Depart  in  peace,  be  ye  warmed  and  filled ;  not- 
withstanding ye  give  them  not  those  things  which  are 
needful  to  the  body ;  what  doth  it  profit  ?  Even  so 
faith,  if  it  hath  not  works,  is  dead,  being  alone.  Yea, 
a  man  may  say,  Thou  hast  faith,  and  I  have  works :  shew 
me  thy  faith  without  thy  works,  and  I  will  shew  thee  my 
faith  by  my  works.  Thou  behevest  that  there  is  one 
God ;  thou  doest  well :  the  devils  also  beheve,  and  tremble. 
But  wilt  thou  know,  0  vain  man,  that  faith  without 
works  is  dead  ?  Was  not  Abraham  our  father  justified 
by  works,  when  he  had  offered  Isaac  his  son  upon  the 
altar  ?  Seest  thou  how  faith  wrought  with  his  works, 
and  by  works  was  faith  made  perfect  ?  Ye  see  then  how 
that  by  works  a  man  becomes  righteous  and  not  by  faith 
only.  For  as  the  body  without  the  spirit  is  dead,  so 
faith  without  works  is  dead  also. 

James  says  that  the  only  sign  of  faith  is  works  which 
result  from  it,  and  that,  therefore,  faith  from  which  works 
do  not  result  is  only  words  with  which  one  can  no  more 
become  righteous  and  save  oneself,  than  one  can  feed  on 
them.  And  so  faith  from  which  works  do  not  result  is 
not  faith ;  it  is  only  a  desire  to  believe  in  something ;  it 


MY    RELIGION  139 

is  ouly  a  faulty  affirmation  in  words  that  I  believe  in 
that  in  which  I  do  not  believe. 

Faith,  according  to  this  definition,  is  that  which  co- 
operates with  works,  and  work  is  that  which  makes  faith 
perfect,  that  is,  which  makes  faith  to  be  faith. 

The  Jews  say  to  Christ  (John  vL  30) :  What  sign 
shewest  thou  then,  that  we  may  see,  and  beheve  thee? 
what  dost  thou  work  ? 

The  same  he  was  told  when  he  was  on  the  cross  (Mark 
XV.  32) :  Let  him  descend  from  the  cross,  that  we  may 
see  and  believe. 

Matt,  xxvii.  42.  He  saved  others :  himself  he  cannot 
save.  If  he  be  the  King  of  Israel,  let  him  now  come  down 
from  the  cross,  and  we  will  beheve  him. 

To  such  a  demand  for  the  increasing  of  their  faith  Christ 
replies  only  that  their  wish  is  vain,  and  that  it  is  impossible 
to  make  them  believe  in  what  they  do  not  beheve.  He 
says  (Luke  xxii.  67),  If  I  tell  you,  ye  will  not  believe. 
John  X.  25-26 :  I  told  you,  and  ye  beheved  not;  but  ye 
believe  not,  because  ye  are  not  of  my  sheep,  as  I  said 
unto  you. 

The  Jews  ask  the  same  that  the  church  Christians  ask, 
something  that  will  make  them  in  an  external  way  beheve 
in  Christ's  teaching.  And  he  rephes  to  them  that  this  is 
impossible,  and  explains  to  them  why  it  is  impossible. 
He  says  that  they  cannot  believe,  because  they  are  not  of 
his  sheep,  that  is,  do  not  follow  the  way  of  life  which  he 
showed  his  sheep.  He  explains  (John  v.  44)  wherein  the 
difference  is  between  his  sheep  and  others,  why  some 
believe,  and  others  not,  and  on  what  faith  is  based.  How 
can  ye  believe,  he  says,  when  you  receive  86^a}  the  teach- 
ing, from  one  another,  but  seek  not  the  teaching  that 
Cometh  from  God  only  ? 

1  As  in  many  other  plaoe«;.  S6^a  is  quite  incorrectly  translated  by  the 
word  honour  or  glory ;  86^a,  from  5ok^w,  means  conception,  judgment, 
teaching.  — Author's  Note. 


140  MY   RELIGION 

To  believe,  says  Christ,  we  must  seek  the  teaching 
which  is  from  God  only.  He  that  speaketh  of  himself 
seeketh  his  personal  teaching  (ho^av  rrjv  thiav) :  but  he 
that  seeketh  his  teaching  that  sent  him,  the  same  is  true, 
and  no  unrighteousness  is  in  him  (John  vii.  18). 

The  teaching  concerning  life  (So^a)  is  the  foundation  of 
faith.  All  acts  result  from  faith:  but  all  faiths  result 
from  the  meaning  (So^a)  which  we  ascribe  to  life.  There 
can  be  an  endless  number  of  acts,  and  so  there  can  be  a 
very  large  number  of  faiths ;  but  there  can  be  but  two 
teachings  concerning  life  (86^a) :  one  of  them  rejects,  the 
other  accepts  Christ.  One  teaching,  the  one  which  Christ 
denies,  consists  in  this,  that  the  personal  Hfe  is  something 
actually  existing  and  belonging  to  man.  It  is  the  teach- 
ing to  which  the  majority  of  men  have  adhered,  and  from 
which  result  all  the  various  beliefs  of  men  and  all  their 
acts.  The  other  teaching  is  the  one  which  all  the  prophets 
and  Christ  preached,  namely,  that,  our  personal  life  re- 
ceives a  meaning  only  in  the  execution  of  God's  will. 

If  a  man  has  that  So^a  that  his  personality  is  more  im- 
portant than  anything,  he  will  think  that  his  personal  good 
is  the  most  important  and  desirable  thing  in  life,  and,  ac- 
cording to  whether  he  will  assume  his  good  to  be  in  the 
acquisition  of  property,  or  in  reputation,  or  glory,  or 
the  gratification  of  his  lust,  and  so  forth,  he  will  have  a 
faith  corresponding  to  tliis  view,  and  all  his  acts  will  be  in 
conformity  with  it. 

If  man  has  another  Bo^a,  if  he  understands  life  in  such 
a  way  that  its  meaning  is  only  in  the  execution  of  God's 
will,  as  Abraham  understood  it  and  Christ  taught,  then, 
according  to  what  he  will  put  the  will  of  God  in,  he  will 
have  a  faith  in  conformity  with  this  view,  and  all  his  acts 
will  always  harmonize  with  it. 

This  is  the  reason  why  believers  in  the  good  of  the  per- 
sonal life  cannot  believe  in  Christ's  teaching.  All  their 
attempts  at  believing  this  will  ever  remain  vain.     In  order 


MY    RELIGION  141 

that  they  may  believe,  they  must  change  their  view  of 
life.  So  long  as  they  have  not  changed  it,  their  works 
will  always  coincide  with  their  faith,  and  not  with  their 
wishes  and  words. 

The  desire  to  believe  in  Christ's  teaching,  expressed 
by  those  who  asked  him  for  signs,  and  by  our  believers, 
does  not  coincide,  and  cannot  coincide,  with  their  lives, 
no  matter  how  much  they  may  try.  They  may  pray  to 
Christ  the  God,  go  to  communion,  do  works  of  philan- 
thropy, build  churches,  convert  others,  —  they  do  all 
that,  —  but  they  cannot  do  the  works  of  Christ,  because 
these  spring  from  faith,  which  is  based  on  an  entirely  dif- 
ferent doctrine  (So^a)  than  the  one  which  they  profess. 
They  cannot  sacrifice  their  only  son,  as  Abraham  did, 
who  did  not  even  stop  to  tliink  whether  he  should  sacri- 
fice his  son  or  not  to  God,  to  that  God  who  alone  gave  a 
meaning  and  the  good  to  his  hfe.  Even  so  Christ  and  his 
disciples  could  not  help  but  sacrifice  their  lives  to  others, 
because  in  this  alone  did  the  meaning  and  the  good  of 
their  lives  lie.  From  this  lack  of  comprehension  of  the 
essence  of  faith  springs  that  strange  wish  of  people,  which 
is,  that  they  may  believe  that  it  is  better  to  live  according 
to  the  teaching  of  Christ,  whereas  with  all  the  powers  of 
their  soul  they  wish,  in  harmony  with  their  faith  in  the 
good  of  the  personal  lives,  to  live  contrary  to  this  teaching. 

The  foundation  of  faith  is  the  meaning  of  Hfe,  from 
which  flows  the  valuation  of  what  is  important  and  good 
in  life,  and  of  what  is  not  important  and  bad.  The  valu- 
ation of  all  the  phenomena  of  Hfe  is  faith.  And  as  now 
people,  having  faith  which  is  based  on  their  teaching,  are 
positively  unable  to  harmonize  it  with  the  faith  which 
springs  from  Christ's  teaching,  even  so  his  disciples  were 
unable  to  do  so.  This  perplexity  is  several  times  sharply 
and  clearly  expressed  in  the  Gospel.  Christ's  disciples 
several  times  begged  him  to  confirm  their  faith  in  what 
he  said  :  Matt.  xx.  20-28  and  Mark  x.  35-45.    According  to 


142  MY    RELIGION 

either  gospel,  after  the  words  which  are  terrible  for  every 
believer  in  the  personal  life,  who  assumes  the  good  to  lie 
in  the  riches  of  the  world,  and  after  the  words  that  the 
rich  man  will  not  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God,  and 
after  the  words,  which  are  still  more  terrible  for  those 
who  beheve  in  nothing  but  the  personal  life,  about  this, 
that  he  who  will  not  give  up  everything  and  his  life  for  the 
sake  of  Christ's  teaching  will  not  be  saved,  Peter  asks, 
What  shall  we  have  for  having  followed  thee,  and  given 
up  everything?  Then,  according  to  Mark,  James  and 
John  themselves,  and  according  to  Matthew  their  mother, 
ask  him  to  grant  them  that  they  may  sit  on  both  sides  of 
him  when  he  shall  be  in  his  glory.  They  ask  him  to  con- 
firm their  faith  by  a  promise  of  a  reward. 

To  Peter's  question  Jesus  replies  with  a  parable  about 
the  labourers  of  the  vineyard  who  are  hired  at  different 
times  (Matt.  xx.  1-16) ;  but  in  reply  to  James's  request 
he  says.  Ye  know  not  what  ye  ask,  that  is,  you  ask  for 
the  impossible.  The  teaching  is  in  the  renunciation  of  the 
personal  hfe,  and  you  ask  for  personal  glory,  personal 
reward.  You  can  drink  the  same  cup  (pass  your  life) 
that  I  drink,  but  no  one  can  make  you  sit  on  the  right 
and  on  the  left  of  me,  that  is,  equal  with  me.  And  then 
Christ  says,  Only  in  the  worldly  life  do  the  strong  of  the 
world  enjoy  and  acclaim  the  glory  and  power  of  the  per- 
sonal life;  but  you,  my  disciples,  must  know  that  the 
meaning  of  human  hfe  is  not  in  personal  happiness,  but  in 
serving  all,  in  the  humiliation  in  the  sight  of  all.  Man 
does  not  live  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister  and 
lay  down  his  personal  life,  as  a  ransom  for  all.  In  reply 
to  the  demand  of  the  disciples,  which  showed  him  their 
entire  lack  of  comprehension  of  his  teaching,  Christ  does 
not  command  them  to  beheve,  that  is,  to  change  that  val- 
uation of  the  goods  and  evils  of  life,  which  results  from 
their  teaching  (he  knows  that  this  is  impossible),  but 
explains  to  them  that  meaning  of  life  on  which  faith  is 


MY    RELIGION  143 

based,  that  is,  the  true  valuation  of  what  is  good  and  what 
bad,  what  important  and  what  not. 

In  reply  to  Peter's  question  (Mark  x.  28),  What  shall 
we  get  for  our  sacrifices  ?  Christ  tells  the  parable  of  the 
labourers  who  were  hired  at  different  times  and  yet 
received  the  same  reward.  Christ  explains  to  Peter  his 
wrong  comprehension  of  the  teaching,  on  which  depends 
the  absence  of  his  faith.  (Jhrist  says.  Only  in  the  per- 
sonal and  senseless  life  do  people  esteem  and  treasure  the 
reward  for  work  in  proportion  with  the  work.  The  faith 
in  the  reward  for  the  work  in  proportion  with  the  work 
springs  from  the  teaching  about  the  personal  life.  This 
faith  is  based  on  the  assumption  of  certain  rights  which 
we  are  supposed  to  have  to  something  ;  but  man  has  no 
rights  to  anything,  and  he  can  have  none ;  he  has  only 
obligations  in  return  for  the  good  which  is  given  him,  and 
so  he  cannot  measure  himself  with  any  one.  Even  if  he 
gives  his  whole  life,  he  is  unable  to  give  back  that  which 
is  given  him,  and  so  the  master  cannot  be  unjust  to  him. 
But  if  a  man  proclaims  his  rights  to  his  life  and  asserts 
them  in  respect  to  the  beginning  of  everything  which  has 
given  him  hfe,  he  only  shows  by  this  that  he  does  not 
understand  the  meaning  of  hfe. 

Having  received  their,  happiness,  men  demand  some- 
thing more.  These  men  were  standing  without  work  in 
the  market-place,  and  were  unhappy,  —  they  did  not  live. 
The  master  took  them  and  gave  them  the  highest  happi- 
ness of  life,  —  work.  They  accepted  the  master's  kind- 
ness, and  then  remained  dissatisfied.  They  are  dissatisfied 
because  they  lack  a  clear  comprehension  of  their  situation. 
They  came  to  their  work  with  their  false  teaching  as  to 
their  having  a  right  to  their  life  and  their  labour,  and 
that,  therefore,  their  labour  ought  to  be  rewarded.  They 
do  not  understand  that  this  labour  is  the  highest  good 
which  is  given  them  and  for  which  they  must  only  try  to 
return  a  similar  good,  and  cannot  demand   any  reward. 


144  MY    RELIGION 

And  so  people  who  have  the  same  perverse  opinion  of  life 
that  these  labourers  have  cannot  possess  the  correct  and 
true  faith. 

The  parable  of  the  master  and  the  labourer  who  came 
from  the  field,  which  is  told  in  reply  to  the  direct  request 
of  the  disciples  that  he  confirm  and  increase  their  faith, 
more  clearly  defines  the  foundation  of  that  faith  which 
Christ  teaches. 

(Luke  xvii.  3-10).  In  reply  to  Christ's  words  that  we 
must  forgive  our  brother  not  once  but  seventy  times  seven 
times,  the  disciples,  frightened  at  the  difficulty  of  executing 
this  rule,  say.  Yes,  but  it  is  necessary  to  believe  in  order  to 
execute  this  :  so  confirm  and  increase  our  faith.  As  before 
they  asked  what  they  would  get  for  it,  so  now  they  ask  the 
same  that  all  so-called  Christians  ask  :  I  want  to  believe, 
but  I  cannot ;  confirm  our  faith  that  the  rope  of  salvation 
will  save  us.  Some  say.  Grant  us  that  we  should  believe, 
—  precisely  what  the  Jews  said  to  him  when  they  de- 
manded miracles  of  him.  Make  it  possible  for  us,  by 
means  of  miracles  and  promises  of  rewards,  to  believe  in 
our  salvation. 

The  disciples  speak  as  we  speak.  It  would  be  nice,  if  we, 
living  that  lonely,  peculiar  life  which  we  are  living, 
could  be  made  to  believe  also  this,  that  if  we  shall 
fulfil  God's  teaching,  it  will  be  better  for  us.  We  all  utter 
this  demand,  which  is  contrary  to  the  whole  meaning  of 
Christ's  teaching,  and  wonder  why  we  cannot  believe. 

And  to  this  radical  misconception,  which  existed  then 
even  as  it  exists  now,  he  answers  with  a  parable,  in  which 
he  shows  what  the  true  faith  is.  Faith  cannot  result 
from  a  trust  in  what  he  may  say ;  faith  results  only  from 
the  consciousness  of  one's  position,  Faith  is  based  only 
on  the  rational  consciousness  of  what  it  is  better  to  do 
when  one  finds  oneself  in  a  certain  position.  He  shows 
that  it  is  not  possible  to  rouse  this  faith  in  other  people 
by  the  promise  of  rewards  and  by  the  threat  of  punish- 


MY    RELIGION  145 

ment ;  that  this  would  be  a  very  weak  trust,  which  would 
be  destroyed  with  the  first  temptation ;  that  the  faith 
which  moves  mountains,  which  no  one  can  shake,  is  based 
on  the  consciousness  oi  the  inevitable  ruin  and  on  that 
one  salvation  which  is  possible  in  this  situation. 

In  order  that  we  may  have  faith,  we  do  not  need  any 
promise  of  rewards.  It  must  be  understood  that  the  only 
salvation  from  the  inevitable  destruction  of  life  is  that 
which  in  the  will  of  the  master  is  the  common  life. 
Every  one  who  has  come  to  understand  this  will  not 
seek  a  confirmation,  but  will  be  saved  without  any 
admonitions. 

In  reply  to  the  request  of  the  disciples  to  confirm  them 
in  their  faith,  Christ  says.  When  the  master  comes  with 
the  servant  from  the  field,  he  does  not  tell  him  to  sit 
down  to  eat,  but  orders  him  to  put  away  the  cattle  and 
serve  him,  and  then  only  does  the  labourer  sit  down  at 
the  table  and  eat  his  dinner.  The  labourer  does  all  this 
and  does  not  consider  himself  offended,  and  he  does  not 
boast  and  ask  thanks  or  a  reward,  but  knows  that  it  has 
to  be  so,  and  that  he  is  only  doing  what  is  necessary-,  and 
that  it  is  a  necessary  condition  of  his  service  and  at  the 
same  time  the  true  good  of  his  life.  Even  so  you,  says 
Christ,  when  you  do  everything  which  you  are  com- 
manded, must  consider  that  you  have  done  only  what 
you  ought  to  do.  He  who  will  understand  his  relation 
to  the  master,  will  understand  that  only  by  submitting  to 
the  will  of  the  master  is  he  able  to  have  life,  and  wiU 
know  in  what  his  good  lies,  and  will  have  faith  for  which 
there  will  be  nothing  impossible.  It  is  tliis  faith  that 
Christ  teaches.  Faith,  according  to  Christ's  teaching, 
is  based  on  the  rational  cognition  of  the  meaning  of  one's 
hfe. 

The  foundation  of  faith,  according  to  Christ's  teaching, 
is  the  light. 

John  i,  9-12  ;  That  was  the  true  Light,  which  hghteth 


146  MY   RELIGION 

every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world.  He  was  in  the 
world,  and  the  world  was  made  by  him,  and  the  world 
knew  liim  not.  He  came  unto  his  own,  and  his  own 
received  him  not.  But  as  many  as  received  him,  to  them 
gave  he  power  to  become  the  sons  of  God,  even  to  them 
that  believe  on  his  name. 

John  iii.  19-21  :  And  this  is  the  condemnation,^  that 
light  is  come  into  the  world,  and  men  loved  darkness 
rather  than  light,  because  their  deeds  were  evil.  For 
every  one  that  doeth  evil  hateth  the  light,  neither  cometh 
to  the  light,  lest  his  deeds  should  be  reproved.  But 
he  that  doeth  truth  cometh  to  the  light,  that  his  deeds 
may  be  made  manifest,  that  they  are  wrought  in  God. 
For  him  who  understands  Christ's  teaching  there  can  be 
no  question  about  confirming  his  faith.  Faith,  according 
to  Christ's  teaching,  is  based  on  the  light,  on  truth. 
Christ  nowhere  appeals  to  people  to  believe  in  him ;  he 
only  appeals  to  them  to  believe  in  the  truth. 

He  says  to  the  Jews  (John  viii.  40),  But  now  you 
seek  to  kill  me,  a  man  that  hath  told  you  the  truth,  which 
I  have  heard  of  God.  (46)  Which  of  you  convinces  me 
of  sin  ?  And  if  I  say  the  truth,  why  do  ye  not  believe 
me?  John  xviii.  37:  To  this  end  was  I  born,  and  for 
this  cause  came  I  into  the  world,  that  I  should  bear  wit- 
ness unto  the  truth.  Every  one  that  is  of  the  truth  hear- 
eth  my  voice.  John  xiv.  6 :  He  saith,  I  am  the  way,  the 
truth,  and  the  life. 

In  another  place  of  the  same  chapter  (16  and  17)  he 
says  :  The  Father  shall  give  you  another  Comforter,  that 
he  may  abide  with  you  for  ever :  even  the  Spirit  of  truth  ; 
whom  the  world  cannot  receive,  because  it  seeth  him  not, 
neither  knoweth  him  :  but  ye  know  him  ;  for  he  dwelleth 
with  you,  and  shall  be  in  you. 

He  says  that   his  whole  teaching,  he  himself,  is  the 
truth. 
1  Kplffis  does  not  mean  condemnation,  but  division.  —  Author's  Note. 


MY   RELIGION  147 

Christ's  teaching  is  the  teaching  of  the  truth,  and  so 
Christ's  faith  is  not  trust  in  anything,  as  referring  to 
Jesus,  but  the  knowledge  of  the  truth.  It  is  impossible 
to  assure  one  of  Christ's  teaching,  —  it  is  impossible  to 
bribe  one  to  fulfil  it.  He  who  understands  Christ's  teach- 
ing will  have  faith  in  him,  because  his  teaching  is  the 
truth.  He  who  knows  the  truth  which  is  necessary  for 
his  good  cannot  help  but  believe  in  it,  and  so  a  man  who 
understands  that  he  is  actually  drowning  cannot  help 
but  take  hold  of  the  rope  of  salvation.  The  question  as 
to  how  one  should  do  in  order  that  one  may  be  able  to 
believe  is  a  question  which  only  expresses  the  lack  of 
conception  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ. 


X. 

We  say  that  it  is  hard  to  live  according  to  Christ's 

teaching.     How  can  it  help  being  hard  since  we  ourselves 

with  all  our  hfe   cautiously  conceal   from  ourselves  our 

situation,  and  carefully  confirm  in  ourselves  the  confidence 

in  this,  that  our  situation  is  not  what  it  is,  but  something 

quite  different  ?  And  this  confidence,  by  calhng  it  faith,  we 

exalt  to  something  sacred,  and  with  all  possible  means  — 

with  force,  with  acting  upon  the  feelings,  with  threats,  with 

flattery,  with  deceit  —  entice  men  to  this  false  trust.  In  this 

demand  of  a  trust  in  what  is  impossible  and  irrational 

we  reach   a  point  where  the  very   irrationality  of  that 

which  we  demand  shall  be  trusted  is  taken  by  us  as  a  sign 

of  its  truth.     A  man  was  found  who,  being  a  Christian, 

said.  Credo  quia  ahsurdum,  and  all  the  other  Christians 

repeat  this  with  raptures,  assuming  that  insipidity  is  the 

best  means  for  teaching  the  truth  to  men.     Lately,  in  a 

conversation  with  me,  a  learned  and  clever  man  said  to 

me  that  the  Christian  teaching  as  a  moral  teaching  about 

life  was  not  important.     "  All  this,"  he  said  to  me,  "  will 

be    found   with  the   Stoics,  with  the  Brahmins,  in  the 

Talmud.     The  essence  of  the  Christian  teaching  is  not  in 

this,  but  in  the  theosophical  teaching  which  is  expressed 

in  the  dogmas."     That  i,s,  not  that  is  of  any  value  to 

the  Christian  teaching  which  is  eternal  and  universally 

human,  which  is  needed   for  life  and  is  rational,  but  that 

is  important  and  precious  in  Christianity  which  is  entirely 

incomprehensible  and,  therefore,  unnecessary,  and  that  in 

the  name  of  which  millions  of  men  have  been  killed. 

We  have  formed  for  ourselves  a  false  representation  of 

148    ^ 


MY    RELIGION  149 

our  life  and  of  that  of  the  world,  and  this  is  based  on 
nothing  but  our  malice  and  personal  lusts ;  and  the  faith 
in  this  false  representation,  which  is  externally  connected 
with  the  teaching  of  Christ,  we  consider  most  necessary 
and  important  for  life.  If  it  were  not  for  this  trust 
in  the  lie,  which  men  have  maintained  through  the  ages, 
the  lie  of  our  conception  of  life  and  the  truth  of  Christ's 
teaching  would  have  been  made  manifest  long  ago. 

It  is  terrible  to  say  so  (it  so  seems  to  me  at  times),  but, 
if  the  teaching  of  Christ  with  the  ecclesiastical  teaching 
which  has  grown  up  on  it  did  not  exist  at  all,  those  who 
are  now  called  Christians  would  be  much  nearer  to  the 
teaching  of  Christ,  that  is,  to  the  rational  teaching  about 
the  good  of  life,  than  they  are  now.  The  moral  teachings 
of  the  prophets  of  all  humanity  would  not  be  concealed 
from  them.  They  would  have  their  little  prophets  of 
truth,  whom  they  would  believe.  But  as  it  is,  the  whole 
truth  is  revealed,  and  this  truth  has  appeared  so  terrible 
to  those  whose  deeds  are  evil,  that  they  have  transformed 
it  into  a  he,  and  men  have  lost  confidence  in  the  truth. 
In  our  European  society,  Christ's  declaration  that  he  came 
into  the  world  to  bear  witness  of  the  truth,  and  that, 
therefore,  every  one  who  is  of  the  truth  hears  liim,  has 
long  ago  been  met  with  Pilate's  words.  What  is  the  truth  ? 
These  words,  which  express  such  a  sad  and  deep  irony 
against  one  Roman,  we  have  taken  as  the  truth  and  have 
made  them  our  faith.  All  in  our  society  live,  not  only 
without  the  truth,  not  only  without  any  desire  to  know  it, 
but  even  with  the  firm  assurance  that  of  all  vain  occupa- 
tions the  vainest  is  the  seeking  of  the  truth  that  determines 
human  life. 

The  teaching  about  life  —  what  with  all  the  nations 
previous  to  our  European  society  was  always  regarded  as 
most  important,  what  Christ  declared  to  be  the  one  thing 
needed  —  is  the  only  one  to  be  excluded  from  our  life 
and  from  aU  human  activity.     This  is  the  business  of  the 


150  MY    RELIGION 

institution  which  is  called  the  church,  and  no  one,  not 
even  those  who  form  this  institution,  has  believed  in  it 
for  a  long  time. 

The  one  window  for  the  Hght,  toward  which  the  eyes  of 
all  thinking  and  suffering  people  are  directed,  is  screened. 
To  the  question,  What  am  I  ?  what  shall  I  do  ?  can  I  not 
alleviate  my  life  in  accordance  with  the  teaching  of  that 
God  who,  as  you  say,  came  to  save  us  ?  I  am  told :  Exe- 
cute the  injunctions  of  the  authorities,  and  beheve  in  the 
church.  But  why  do  we  hve  so  wretchedly  in  this  world  ? 
asks  a  despairing  voice  :  What  is  all  this  evil  for  ?  Is  it 
possible  I  cannot  avoid  participating  with  my  body  in  this 
evil  ?  The  answer  is.  No,  your  desire  to  pass  your  life 
well  and  to  help  others  to  do  so  is  pride.  There  is  one 
thing  you  can  do,  and  that  is,  to  save  yourself,  your  soul, 
for  the  future  life.  But  if  you  do  not  wish  to  take  part 
in  the  evil  of  the  world,  go  out  of  it.  This  way  is  open 
to  all,  says  the  teaching  of  the  church,  but  know  that,  in 
choosing  this  path,  you  must  no  longer  take  part  in  the 
life  of  the  world,  but  must  stop  living  and  slowly  kill 
yourself.  There  are  but  two  ways,  our  teachers  tell  us, 
and  those  are,  to  beheve  and  obey  us  and  the  authorities, 
and  to  participate  in  the  evil  which  we  have  instituted,  or 
to  go  out  of  the  world  and  into  a  monastery,  to  watch 
and  to  fast ;  or  to  let  your  flesh  rot  on  a  pillar,  to  bend 
and  unbend  your  body  and  do  nothing  for  men;  or  to 
acknowledge  Christ's  teacliing  impracticable  and  so  to.  ac- 
knowledge the  lawlessness  of  life  as  sanctified  by  rehgion  ; 
or  to  renounce  life,  which  is  tantamount  to  a  slow  suicide. 

No  matter  how  remarkable  to  a  man  who  understands 
the  teaching  of  Christ  appears  the  error  which  assumes 
that  Christ's  teaching  is  very  good  for  men,  but  impracti- 
cable, —  the  error  which  assumes  that  a  man  who  wishes 
to  fulfil  Christ's  teaching  with  works,  and  not  with  words, 
must  go  out  of' the  world,  seems  more  remarkable  still. 

The  delusion  that  it  is  better  for  a  man  to  retire  from 


MY   KELIGION  151 

the  world  than  to  subject  himself  to  the  temptations 
of  the  world  is  an  old  error  which  has  been  long  known 
to  the  Jews,  but  which  is  entirely  foreign,  not  only  to  the 
spirit  of  Christianity,  but  even  to  Judaism.  Against  this 
delusion  the  story  of  the  prophet  Jonah,  which  Christ 
liked  so  much  and  adduced  so  often,  was  written  long 
before  his  time.  The  thought  of  this  story  is  the  same 
from  beginning  to  end :  Jonah  the  prophet  wants'  himself 
to  be  just  and  removes  himself  from  the  corrupt  people. 
But  God  shows  him  that  he  is  a  prophet  and  is  wanted 
for  nothing  else  than  that  he  should  announce  his  knowl- 
edge of  the  truth  to  people  who  have  gone  astray,  and  so 
must  not  run  away  from  these  erring  people,  but  must 
live  in  communion  with  them.  Jonah  has  contempt  for 
the  corrupt  Ninevites  and  runs  away  from  them ;  but,  no 
matter  how  much  Jonah  runs  away  from  his  vocation, 
God  brings  him  back  to  the  Ninevites  by  means  of  the 
whale,  and  what  God  wishes  is  accomplished,  that  is,  the 
Ninevites  receive  through  Jonah  God's  teaching,  and  their 
life  is  improved.  But  Jonah  is  by  no  means  glad  to  be 
the  tool  of  God's  will :  he  is  annoyed,  he  is  jealous  of 
God  in  respect  to  the  Ninevites,  —  he  would  like  to  be 
the  only  rational  and  good  man.  He  retires  to  the  wil- 
derness, laments  his  fate,  and  murmurs  against  God. 
Then  a  gourd  grows  out  in  one  night,  to  defend  him 
against  the  sun,  and  the  following  night  a  worm  devours 
this  gourd.  Jonah  rebukes  God  more  than  ever,  because 
his  precious  gourd  has  perished.  Then  God  says  to  him. 
Thou  art  sorry  for  the  gourd,  which  thou  callest  thy  own, 
and  which  grew  up  in  one  night  and  disappeared  in  one 
night,  and  am  I  not  sorry  for  the  great  multitude  that 
perished,  that  multitude  that  live  like  animals,  and  are 
unable  to  discern  between  their  right  hand  and  their  left 
hand  ?  Thy  knowledge  of  the  truth  was  wanted  even  for 
this,  that  thou  mightest  transmit  it  to  those  who  did  not 
have  it. 


152  MY    RELIGION 

Christ  knew  this  story  and  frequently  quoted  it,  but,  in 
addition  to  this,  it  tells  in  the  gospels  how,  after  the  visit 
of  John  the  Baptist,  who  retired  to  the  wilderness,  Christ, 
before  the  beginning  of  his  preacliiug,  was  subjected  to 
the  same  temptation,  and  how  he  was  led  by  the  devil 
(deception)  into  the  wilderness  in  order  to  be  tempted, 
and  how  he  vanquished  this  deception  and  returned  to 
Galilee  in  the  strength  of  his  spirit,  and  how,  no  longer 
contemning  corrupt  people,  he  after  that  passed  his  life 
among  pubHcans,  Pharisees,  and  sinners,  teaching  them 
the  truth.i 

According  to  the  church  teaching  Christ  the  God-man 
has  given  us  an  example  of  hfe.  All  his  known  life 
Christ  passes  in  the  wliirlpool  of  life,  —  with  publicans, 
with  harlots,  in  Jerusalem,  with  the  Pharisees.  The  chief 
commandments  of  Christ  are  the  love  of  one's  neighbour 
and  the  preaching  of  his  teaching  to  others.  Both  demand 
a  constant  communion  with  the  world.  Suddenly  the 
conclusion  is  drawn  from  this,  that,  according  to  Christ's 
teaching,  it  is  necessary  to  go  away  from  all  men,  not  to 
have  anything  to  do  with  any  one,  and  to  stand  on  a  pil- 
lar. To  follow  Christ's  example,  it  turns  out  that  we  have 
to  do  the  very  opposite  of  what  he  taught  and  did. 

1  Luke  iv.  1,  2  :  Christ  is  led  by  tlie  deception  into  the  wilderness, 
in  order  that  he  may  be  tempted  there.  Matt.  iv.  ,3,  4  :  The  deception 
says  to  Christ  that  he  is  not  the  Son  of  God,  if  he  cannot  make  bread 
out  of  stones.  Christ  says,  I  can  live  without  bread,  —  I  live  by  what 
is  breathed  into  me  by  God.  Then  the  deception  .says,  If  thou  livest 
by  what  is  breathed  into  thee  by  God,  throw  thyself  down  from  a 
height ;  thou  wilt  kill  the  flesh,  but  the  spirit  which  is  breathed  into 
thee  by  God  will  not  die.  Christ  answers.  My  life  in  the  flesh  is  the 
will  of  God.  To  kill  the  flesh  is  to  go  against  the  will  of  God,  to 
tempt  God.  Matt.  iv.  8-11  :  Then  the  deception  .says,  If  that  is  so 
serve  the  fie.sh,  like  all  men,  and  the  flesh  will  reward  thee.  Christ 
answers,  I  am  powerless  over  the  flesh,  —my  life  is  in  the  spirit  ;  but 
I  cannot  destroy  the  flesh,  because  the  spirit  was  put  into  me  by  the 
will  of  God,  and  so,  living  in  the  flesh,  I  can  .serve  only  my  Father, 
God.  And  Christ  goes  from  the  wilderness  back  to  the  world.  — , 
Author's  Note. 


MY    RELIGION  153 

Christ's  teaching,  according  to  the  church  interpre- 
tations, presents  itself,  both  to  laymen  and  to  the 
monastic  orders,  not  as  a  teaching  about  life,  —  how  it  is 
to  be  made  better  for  ourselves  and  for  others,  —  but  as  a 
teaching  of  what  worldly  people  are  to  believe  in,  in  order 
that,  living  badly,  they  may  none  the  less  save  themselves 
in  the  next  world  ;  and  to  the  monastic  orders,  as  to  how 
they  can  make  life  worse  than  what  it  is. 

But  Christ  does  not  teach  this. 

Christ  teaches  the  truth,  and  if  an  abstract  truth  is  a 
truth,  it  will  be  true  even  in  reality.  If  the  life  in  God 
is  the  one  true  life,  bhssful  in  itself,  it  is  true  and  blissful 
here  upon  earth  under  all  possible  accidents  of  life.  If 
the  life  here  on  earth  did  not  contirm  Christ's  teaching 
about  life,  this  teaching  would  be  untrue. 

Christ  does  not  call  people  away  from  what  is  good  to 
what  is  worse,  but,  on  the  contrary,  to  something  better 
from  what  is  bad.  He  is  sorry  for  people,  who  represent 
themselves  to  him  as  lost  sheep  that  are  perishing  without 
a  shepherd,  and  promises  them  a  shepherd  and  good 
pasturage.  He  says  that  his  disciples  will  be  persecuted 
for  his  teaching  and  must  suffer  and  bear  the  persecutions 
of  the  world  with  firmness.  But  he  does  not  say  that, 
following  his  teaching,  they  will  suffer  more  than  if  they 
followed  the  teaching  of  the  world ;  on  the  contrary,  he 
says  that  those  who  will  follow  the  teaching  of  the  world 
wiU  be  unhappy,  while  those  who  will  follow  his  teach- 
ing will  be  blessed. 

Christ  does  not  teach  salvation  through  faith,  nor  as- 
ceticism, that  is,  the  deception  of  the  imagination,  nor  self- 
imposed  sufferings  in  this  life ;  but  he  teaches  that  kind 
of  a  life  which,  in  addition  to  the  salvation  from  the 
destruction  of  the  personal  life,  would  offer  even  here,  in 
this  world,  less  suffering  and  more  pleasure  than  in  the 
case  of  the  personal  life. 

In  disclosing  his  teaching,  Christ  says  to  men  that,  by 


154  MY    RELIGION 

fulfilling  his  teacliiug  even  among  those  who  do  not  fulfil 
it,  they  will  not  be  more  unfortunate  thereby  than  they 
were  before,  but,  on  the  contrary,  happier  than  those  who 
will  not  fulfil  this.  Christ  says  that  there  is  a  safe 
worldly  calculation  why  they  should  not  trouble  them- 
selves about  the  life  of  the  world. 

Then  Peter  began  to  say  unto  him,  Lo,  we  have  left  all, 
and  have  followed  thee.  And  Jesus  answered  and  said. 
Verily  I  say  unto  you.  There  is  no  man  that  hath  left 
house,  or  brethren,  or  sisters,  or  father,  or  mother,  or  wife, 
or  children,  or  lauds,  for  my  sake,  and  the  gospel's,  but 
he  shall  receive  an  hundred-fold  now  in  this  time,  houses, 
and  brethren,  and  sisters,  and  mothers,  and  children,  and 
lands,  with  persecutions ;  and  in  the  world  to  come,  eter- 
nal life.  Matt.  xix.  27-29  ;  Mark  x.  28-30  :  Luke  xviii. 
28-30. 

It  is  true,  Christ  mentions  the  fact  that  those  who  will 
obey  him  will  be  subjected  to  persecutions  by  those  who 
will  not  obey  him ;  but  he  does  uOt  say  that  the  disci- 
ples will  lose  anything  by  it.  On  the  contrary,  he  says 
that  his  disciples  will  have  here,  in  this  world,  more  joys 
than  those  who  are  not  his  disciples. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  Christ's  saying  and  think- 
ing this,  both  on  account  of  the  lucidity  of  his  words  and 
the  meaning  of  the  whole  teaching,  and  also  from  the  way 
he  lived  and  from  the  way  his  disciples  lived.  But  is  it 
the  truth  ? 

In  analyzing  the  abstract  question  as  to  whose  position 
will  be  better,  that  of  Christ's  disciples  or  that  of  the  dis- 
ciples of  the  world,  it  is  impossible  to  overlook  the  fact 
that  the  position  of  Christ's  disciples  must  be  better,  because 
Christ's  disciples,  doing  good  to  all  men,  will  not  provoke 
enmity  in  men.  Christ's  disciples,  doing  no  one  any  evil, 
may  be  persecuted  by  evil  men  only ;  but  the  disciples  of 
the  world  must  be  persecuted  by  all,  since  the  law  of  life 
of  the  disciples  of  the  world  is  a  law  of  struggle,  that  is,  a 


MY   RELIGION  155 

persecution  of  one  another.  The  accidents  of  suffering  are 
indeed  the  same  for  both,  but  ^vith  this  difference,  that 
Christ's  disciples  will  be  prepared  for  them,  while  the  dis- 
ciples of  the  world  will  employ  all  the  forces  of  their  souls 
in  order  to  avoid  them,  and  that  Christ's  disciples,  sufi'er- 
iug,  will  think  that  their  suherings  are  needed  for  the 
world,  while  the  disciples  of  the  world,  suffering,  will 
not  know  what  they  are  suffering  for.  Considering  the 
matter  in  the  abstract,  the  condition  of  Christ's  disciples 
nmst  be  more  advantageous  than  the  condition  of  the  dis- 
ciples of  the  world.     But  is  this  so  in  practice  ? 

In  order  to  verify  this,  let  each  man  recall  all  the  diffi- 
cult minutes  of  his  life,  all  the  bodily  and  spiritual  suffer- 
ings which  he  has  endured  and  still  endures,  and  let  him 
ask  himself  in  the  name  of  what  he  is  enduring  all  these 
misfortunes,  whether  in  the  name  of  the  world,  or  in  that 
of  Christ.  Let  each  sincere  man  try  and  recall  his  whole 
past  hfe,  and  he  will  see  that  not  once  did  he  suffer  from 
the  execution  of  Christ's  teaching,  but  that  the  majority 
of  the  misfortunes  of  his  life  have  been  due  to  this,  that, 
in  opposition  to  his  bent,  he  has  followed  the  compulsory 
teaching  of  the  world. 

In  my  life,  which  is  exceptionally  happy  from  the 
worldly  point  of  view,  I  can  think  of  enough  sufferings 
borne  by  me  in  the  name  of  the  teachings  of  the  world  to 
suffice  for  a  good  martyr  in  the  name  of  Christ.  All  the 
most  oppressive  minutes  of  my  hfe,  beginning  with  student 
sprees  and  debauches  and  ending  with  duels,  war,  and 
that  malaise  and  those  unnatural  and  agonizing  conditions 
of  life,  in  which  I  now  live,  —  all  this  is  a  torment  in  the 
name  of  the  teaching  of  the  world. 

Yes,  I  am  speaking  only  of  my  hfe,  which  is  exception- 
ally happy  from  a  worldly  point  of  view.  And  how  many 
martyrs  there  are  who  have  suffered  for  the  teaching  of 
the  world  in  a  manner  which  I  am  not  even  able  to 
present  to  myself ! 


156  MY    RELIGION 

We  do  not  see  all  the  difficulty  and  all  the  peril  of  the 
fulfilment  of  the  teaching  of  the  world  simply  because  we 
think  that  everything  we  suffer  for  it  is  necessary. 

We  have  convinced  ourselves  that  all  those  misfortunes 
which  we  inflict  upon  ourselves  are  necessary  conditions 
of  our  life,  and  so  we  cannot  understand  that  Christ  is 
teacliing  us  precisely  how  we  are  to  free  ourselves  from 
our  misfortunes  and  live  peacefully. 

To  be  able  to  consider  the  question  as  to  what  Hfe  is 
happier,  we  must  at  least  mentally  renounce  this  false 
conception  and  without  any  preconceived  notion  look  at 
ourselves  and  all  about  us. 

Walk  through  a  large  crowd  of  people,  especially  in  the 
city,  and  scan  those  emaciated,  troubled,  sickly  faces,  and 
then  recall  your  own  life  and  those  men's  lives  the  details 
of  which  you  happen  to  have  found  out ;  recall  all  those 
violent  deaths,  all  those  suicides,  which  have  come  to  your 
ears,  and  ask  yourself  in  the  name  of  what  all  these  suf- 
ferings, deaths,  and  despairs,  that  lead  people  to  commit 
suicide,  take  place.  You  will  see,  no  matter  how  strange 
it  may  seem  to  you  at  first,  that  nine-tenths  of  the  suffer- 
ings of  men  are  borne  by  them  in  the  name  of  the  teach- 
ing of  the  world,  that  all  these  sufferings  are  unnecessary 
and  avoidable,  that  the  majority  of  men  are  the  martyrs 
of  the  teaching  of  the  world. 

The  other  day,  which  was  a  rainy  autumnal  Sunday,  I 
crossed  the  market-place  of  the  Sukharev  Tower  in  a  horse- 
car.  For  the  distance  of  half  a  verst  the  car  had  to  push 
aside  a  solid  mass  of  people,  who  immediately  came  to- 
gether again  behind  us.  From  morning  until  evening 
these  thousands  of  people,  of  whom  the  majority  are  hun- 
gry and  in  tatters,  crowd  here  in  the  mud,  cursing,  cheat- 
ing, and  despising  one  another.  The  same  takes  place  in 
all  the  market-places  of  Moscow.  The  evening  is  passed 
by  these  people  in  inns  and  restaurants,  and  the  night  in 
their  dens  and  corners.     Sunday  is  their  best  day  of  the 


MY    RELIGION  157 

week.  On  Monday  they  will  again  go  about  their  hateful 
work  in  their  infected  dens. 

Consider  the  lives  of  all  these  men,  the  condition  which 
they  have  left  in  order  to  choose  the  one  in  which  they 
have  placed  themselves ;  consider  that  unceasing  labour 
wliich  these  people  —  these  men  and  these  women  —  do 
wilfully,  and  you  will  see  that  they  are  true  martyrs. 

All  these  people  have  left  their  homes,  their  fathers, 
brothers,  frequently  wives  and  children,  have  renounced 
everything,  even  life  itself,  and  have  come  to  town  in 
order  to  obtain  that  which  according  to  the  teaching 
of  the  world  is  considered  necessary  for  each  of  them. 
All  of  these,  not  to  speak  of  those  tens  of  thousands  of 
unfortunate  men  who  have  lost  everything  and  live  on 
tripes  and  vodka  in  their  doss-houses,  —  all,  from  the 
factory  hand,  cab-drivers,  sewing-girls,  prostitutes,  to 
the  rich  merchant  and  the  minister,  and  their  wives, — 
live  a  most  oppressive  and  unnatural  life  and  yet  have  not 
acquired  what  for  them  is  necessary  according  to  the 
teaching  of  the  world. 

Hunt  among  these  people,  and  find,  from  a  beggar  to  a 
rich  man,  one  who  has  enough,  with  what  he  earns,  for 
everything  which  he  considers  necessary  according  to  the 
teaching  of  the  world,  and  you  will  see  that  you  will  not 
find  one  in  a  thousand.  Every  one  of  them  struggles  with 
all  his  might  to  gain  what  he  does  not  need,  but  what  is 
demanded  of  him  according  to  the  teaching  of  the  world 
and  the  absence  of  which  forms  his  misfortune.  The 
moment  he  earns  what  he  needs,  a  second  and  a  third 
thing  will  be  demanded  of  him,  and  thus  proceeds  this 
endless  Sisyphean  labour,  which  ruins  the  lives  of  men. 

Take  the  scale  of  incomes  of  people,  from  those  who 
spend  three  hundred  roubles  to  those  who  spend  fifty 
thousand  roubles  a  year,  and  you  will  rarely  find  a  man 
who  is  not  worn  out  and  exhausted  from  working  to  earn 
four  hundred  roubles,  when  he  has  three  hundred  roubles. 


158  MY    KELIGION" 

and  five  hundred  roubles,  when  he  has  four  hundred  rou- 
bles, and  so  on  ;  and  there  is  not  one  who,  having  five  hun- 
dred roubles,  would  of  Ms  free  will  go  back  to  the  condition 
of  him  who  has  only  four  hundred  roubles.  If  there  are 
such  examples,  a  man  makes  this  change,  not  in  order  to 
make  his  life  easier,  but  in  order  to  collect  money  and 
put  it  away.  They  all  want  to  burden  their  lives,  which 
are  heavy  as  it  is,  and  to  give  their  souls  completely  to 
the  teaching  of  the  world.  To-day  a  man  earns  a  coat  and 
a  pair  of  overshoes,  to-morrow  a  watch  with  a  chain,  the 
next  day  an  apartment  with  a  sofa  and  a  lamp,  then 
carpets  for  the  drawing-room  and  velvet  dresses,  then  a 
house,  fast  horses,  pictures  in  gold  frames,  then  he  gi-ows 
sick  from  the  work  above  his  strength,  and  dies.  Another 
continues  the  same  work  and  also  gives  his  life  to  that 
Moloch,  and  he,  too,  dies,  not  knowing  himself  why  he 
did  all  this. 

But,  perhaps,  this  life  itself,  during  which  a  man  does 
all  this,  is  happy  in  itself.  Measure  this  life  by  what 
men  have  called  happiness,  and  you  will  see  that  this  life 
is  dreadfully  unfortunate.  Indeed,  what  are  the  chief 
conditions  of  the  earthly  happiness,  which  no  one  would 
dispute  ? 

One  of  tlie  first  universally  acknowledged  conditions 
of  happiness  is  that  life  in  which  there  is  no  violation  of 
men's  connection  with  Nature,  that  is,  a  life  under  the  open 
sky,  in  the  light  of  the  sun,  in  the  fresh  air :  a  communion 
with  the  soil,  with  plants,  and  with  animals.  Men  have 
at  all  times  considered  the  deprivation  of  this  as  a  great 
misfortune.  Those  who  are  locked  up  in  prisons  feel  this 
deprivation  most  keenly. 

Now,  let  us  look  at  the  hves  of  people  who  live  accord- 
ing to  the  teaching  of  the  world :  the  more  success  they 
have  obtained  according  to  the  teaching  of  the  world,  the 
more  are  they  deprived  of  this  condition  of  happiness ; 
the    higher  the   worldly  happiness  is  which  they   have 


MY    RELIGION  159 

obtained,  the  less  do  they  see  the  sunlight,  fields  and 
forests,  wild  and  domestic  animals.  Many  of  them  — 
nearly  all  the  women  —  live  to  an  old  age,  without  hav- 
ing seen  the  sun  rise  and  the  morning  more  than  once  or 
twice  in  their  lifetime  and  without  ever  having  seen  fields 
and  forests  otherwise  than  from  a  carriage  or  car  window, 
and  not  only  without  ever  having  sowed  or  planted  any- 
thing, or  fed  and  reared  cows,  horses,  chickens,  but  without 
having  even  a  conception  as  to  how  animals  are  born, 
grow  up,  and  live.  These  people  see  only  stuffs,  stones, 
wood,  which  are  worked  by  human  labour,  and  that, 
too,  not  in  the  sunhght,  but  under  an  artificial  illumina- 
tion ;  they  hear  only  the  sounds  of  machines,  carriages, 
guns,  musical  instruments ;  they  smell  perfumes  and  to- 
bacco smoke ;  under  their  feet  and  hands  are  uothiuir  but 
stufis,  stones,  and  wood  ;  on  account  of  the  weakness  of 
their  stomachs  they  generally  eat  what  is  not  fresh,  and 
what  stinks.  Their  migrations  from  place  to  place  do  not 
save  them  from  this  deprivation.  They  travel  in  closed 
boxes.  In  the  country  and  abroad,  whither  they  journey, 
they  have  the  same  stuffs  and  the  same  wood  under  their 
feet,  the  same  curtains  which  conceal  from  them  the  sun- 
light, the  same  lackeys,  coachmen,  janitors,  who  do  not 
permit  them  to  commune  with  the  soil,  the  plants,  and 
the  animals.  No  matter  where  they  may  be,  they  are 
like  prisoners,  deprived  of  this  condition  of  happiness.  As 
prisoners  take  delight  in  the  grass  which  sprouts  in  the 
prison  yard,  or  in  a  spider,  in  a  mouse,  so  these  people 
now  and  then  take  dehght  in  sickly  house-plants,  a  parrot, 
a  little  dog,  a  monkey,  whom,  however,  somebody  else 
looks  after. 

Another  unquestionable  condition  of  happiness  is  work, 
in  the  first  place,  favourite  and  free  work,  in  the  second, 
physical  work,  which  gives  appetite  and  sound,  soothing 
sleep.  Again,  the  greater  the  happiness,  as  they  understand 
it,  which  people  have  obtained  according  to  the  teaching 


160  MY    RELIGION 

of  the  world,  the  more  they  are  deprived  of  this  second 
condition  of  happiness.  All  the  fortunate  people  of  the 
world  —  dignitaries  and  rich  people  —  are  either,  like 
prisoners,  entirely  deprived  of  work  and  unsuccessfully 
struggle  against  diseases  which  are  the  result  of  an 
absence  of  physical  labour,  and  still  more  unsuccessfully 
against  ennui  which  assails  them  (I  say  unsuccessfully, 
because  work  is  a  joy  only  when  it  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary, whereas  nothing  is  necessary  to  them),  or  work  at 
some  hateful  work,  as  is  the  case  with  bankers,  prosecut- 
ing attorneys,  governors,  ministers,  and  their  wives,  who 
fix  up  drawing-rooms,  china,  and  dresses  for  themselves 
and  their  children.  (I  say  hateful,  because  I  have  never 
yet  met  one  among  them  who  praised  his  work  and  did  it 
with  the  same  pleasure  with  which  a  janitor  cleans  the 
snow  away  in  front  of  a  house.)  All  these  happy 
people  are  either  deprived  of  work,  or  are  made 
to  do  work  they  do  not  hke,  that  is,  they  find  them- 
selves in  the  condition  in  which  criminals  at  hard  labour 
are. 

A  third  unquestionable  condition  of  happiness  is  the 
family.  And  here  again,  this  happiness  is  the  less  acces- 
sible to  them  the  more  they  advance  in  worldly  success. 
The  majority  are  adulterers  and  consciously  renounce  the 
domestic  joys,  submitting  to  their  inconveniences  alone. 
If  they  are  not  adulterers,  children  are  not  a  joy  to  them, 
but  an  impediment,  and  they  of  their  own  free  will 
deprive  themselves  of  them,  trying  in  every  way  possible, 
sometimes  by  most  painful  means,  to  make  their  cohabi- 
tation sterile.  And  if  they  have  children,  they  are 
deprived  of  the  pleasure  of  communing  with  them. 
According  to  their  laws,  they  must  give  them  in  charge  of 
others,  for  the  most  part  entire  strangers,  at  first  foreign- 
ers, and  then  state  educators,  so  that  a  family  causes 
them  nothing  but  sorrow,  —  the  children  become  just  as 
unfortunate,  from   their  childhood,  as   their  parents  are. 


MY   RELIGION  161 

and  the  children  have  but  one  wish  toward  them,  and  that 
is,  that  they  may  die  soon  and  leave  them  an  inheritance.^ 
They  are  not  locked  up  in  a  prison  ;  but  the  consequences 
to  their  life  in  relation  to  the  family  is  more  tormenting 
than  the  deprivation  of  family,  to  which  prisoners  are 
subjected. 

A  fourth  condition  of  happiness  is  a  free  and  amicable 
communion  with  all  the  various  men  of  the  world.  Here, 
again,  the  higher  the  level  which  people  have  reached  in 
the  world,  the  more  they  are  deprived  of  this  chief  condi- 
tion of  happiness.  The  higher,  the  narrower  that  circle 
of  men  is  with  whom  communion  is  possible,  the  lower  is 
the  mental  and  moral  development  of  those  few  men  who 
form  the  magic  circle,  from  which  there  is  no  way  out. 
For  a  peasant  and  his  wife  social  intercourse  is  open  with 
the  whole  world,  and  if  one  million  of  people  do  not  want 
to  have  anything  to  do  with  him,  he  still  has  eight }^  mil- 
lions of  men  working  like  him,  from  Arkhangelsk  to  Astra- 
khan, with  whom  he  enters  at  once  into  close,  brotherly 
relations,  without  waiting  for  an  introduction  or  a  visit. 
For  an  official  and  his  wife  there  are  hundreds  like  him, 
but  his  superiors  do  not  admit  him,  and  his  inferiors  are 
cut  ott"  from  him.  For  a  worldly  rich  man  and  his  wife 
there  are  dozens  of  worldly  families.  Everything  else  is 
cut  off  from  them.  For  a  minister  and  a  nabob  and  their 
families  there  exists  a  dozen  such  famihes  as  they  are. 

1  Very  strange  is  the  justification  of  life  which  one  frequently  hears 
from  parents.  "  I  need  nothing,"  says  a  parent,  "  life  is  a  burden  to 
me,  but,  as  I  love  my  children  I  do  this  for  their  sake."  That  is,  I 
know  indubitably  from  experience  that  our  life  is  unhappy,  and  so  — 
1  educate  my  children  in  such  a  way  that  they  may  be  just  as 
unhappy  as  I  am.  And  so,  loving  them,  I  inoculate  them  with  the 
physical  and  moral  infection  of  the  cities,  give  them  into  the  hands 
of  strangers,  who  iiave  only  a  selfish  purpose  in  education,  and  care- 
fully ruin  my  children  physically  and  morally.  This  reflection  is  to 
serve  as  a  justification  of  the  insensate  life  of  the  parents  themselves  ! 
—  Author'' s  Note. 


162  MY    RELIGION 

For  emperors  and  kings  the  circle  becomes  narrower  still. 
Is  not  this  an  imprisonment,  where  the  incarcerated  per- 
son has  social  intercourse  with  but  two  or  three  fellow 
prisoners  ? 

Finally,  a  fifth  condition  of  happiness  is  health  and 
painless  death.  Here  again  the  higher  men  stand  on  the 
social  ladder,  the  more  they  are  deprived  of  this  condition 
of  happiness.  Take  an  average  rich  man  and  his  wife 
and  an  average  peasant  and  his  wife,  in  spite  of  all  the 
starvation  and  the  labour  beyond  their  strength,  which 
the  peasant  people  endure  not  through  their  fault,  but 
through  the  cruelty  of  men,  and  compare  them.  You 
will  see  that  the  lower  the  men  and  women  stand,  the 
healthier  they  are,  and  the  higher,  the  more  sickly  they 
are. 

Pass  in  review  all  those  rich  men  and  their  wives 
whom  you  have  known,  and  you  will  find  that  the  major- 
ity of  them  are  sick.  Among  them  a  healthy  man,  who 
is  not  undergoing  some  cure  all  the  time,  or  periodically 
in  the  summer,  is  as  much  an  exception  as  a  sick  person 
among  the  labouring  classes.  All  these  fortunate  people, 
without  exception,  begin  with  onanism,  which  in  their 
existence  has  become  a  natural  condition  of  development : 
they  all  become  toothless  and  gray  and  bald-headed  in 
those  years  when  a  working  person  enters  into  full  power. 
Nearly  all  of  them  are  a  prey  to  nervous,  stomachic,  or 
sexual  diseases  from  gluttony,  drunkenness,  debauch,  and 
doctoring,  and  those  who  do  not  die  young  pass  half 
their  Hfe  in  undergoing  some  cures,  in  having  morphine 
injected  into  them,  or  as  puffed-up  cripples  who  are 
incapable  of  living  on  their  means,  but  can  exist  only  as 
parasites,  or  as  those  ants  whom  their  slaves  feed.  Pass 
their  manner  of  dying  in  review :  one  committed  suicide, 
another  rotted  away  from  syphilis,  a  third  died  as  an  old 
man  from  a  tonic,  a  fourth  died  young  from  flagellation  to 
which  he  subjected  himself  for  the  sake  of  excitation ; 


MY    RELIGION  163 

one  was  eaten  up  alive  by  lice  or  by  worms,  anotber 
drauk  himself  or  ate  himself  to  death,  still  anotlier  was 
killed  by  moiphiue,  or  from  an  artificial  abortion.  One 
after  the  other  they  perish  in  the  name  of  the  teaching  of 
the  world.  And  the  crowds  pack  after  them,  and,  like 
martyrs,  they  seek  sufferings  and  ruin. 

One  life  after  another  is  thrown  under  the  chariot  of 
this  god :  the  chariot  passes  along,  lacerating  these  lives, 
and  new,  ever  new,  victims  throw  themselves  under  it  with 
groans,  and  sighs,  and  curses  ! 

The  execution  of  Christ's  teaching  is  difficult.  Christ 
says,  Let  those  who  want  to  follow  leave  house,  fields, 
and  brothers,  and  follow  me,  the  God,  and  they  will 
receive  a  hundred  times  more  houses,  fields,  and  brothers, 
and,  besides,  the  eternal  life.  And  nobody  follows  him. 
But  in  the  teaching  of  the  world  it  says:  Abandon 
house,  field,  and  brothers,  leave  the  village  for  the  rotten 
city,  live  all  your  life  as  a  naked  bath-house  attendant, 
lathering  other  people's  backs  in  the  hot  steam ;  or  as  a 
huckster,  all  your  life  counting  other  people's  money  in 
a  basement ;  or  as  a  prosecuting  attorney,  passing  all  your 
life  in  court  and  over  papers,  busy  making  worse  the  fate 
of  unfortunates ;  or  as  a  minister,  all  your  hfe  in  a  hurry 
to  sign  useless  documents ;  or  as  a  general,  all  your  life 
killing  people,  —  live  this  monstrous  life,  which  always 
ends  in  agonizing  death,  and  you  will  receive  nothing  in 
this  world,  and  you  will  have  no  eternal  life.  And  all  go 
after  them.  Christ  said.  Take  thy  cross,  and  follow  me, 
that  is,  humbly  bear  the  fate  which  has  befallen  thee,  and 
obey  me,  the  God ;  and  no  one  follows  him.  But  the 
first  useless  man  in  epaulettes,  who  is  no  good  except  to 
commit  murder,  need  only  take  it  into  his  head  to  say. 
Take,  not  the  cross,  but  the  knapsack  and  the  gun,  and 
follow  me  to  all  kinds  of  suffering  and. eternal  death, — 
and  all  follow  him. 

They  leave  their  families,  parents,  wives,  children,  dress 


164  MY    RELIGION 

themselves  in  fools'  clothes,  subject  themselves  to  the 
power  of  the  first  man  they  meet,  who  is  higher  in  rank, 
and,  hungry,  cold,  and  worn  out  from  exhausting  marches, 
follow  him  somewhere  like  a  herd  of  oxen  going  to  the 
slaughter-house ;  but  they  are  not  oxen,  —  they  are  men. 
They  cannot  help  but  know  that  they  are  driven  to  a 
slaughter-house  ;  with  the  unsolved  question,  "  What  for  ?  " 
and  with  despair  in  their  hearts  they  march,  dying  from 
cold  and  hunger  and  infectious  diseases,  until  they  are 
placed  under  bullets  and  shells  and  are  commanded  to  kill 
strangers.  They  kill  and  are  killed,  and  none  of  those 
who  kill  know  why  or  for  what.  The  Turks  roast  them 
alive  over  a  fire,  flay  them,  and  pull  out  their  entrails. 
And  to-morrow  some  one  will  whistle  again,  and  again 
they  will  all  go  to  meet  terrible  sufferings,  and  death,  and 
obvious  evil.  And  nobody  finds  this  hard.  Not  only 
those  who  suffer,  but  even  fathers  and  mothers  do  not  find 
this  hard.  They  go  so  far  as  to  advise  their  children  to 
do  it.  It  seems  to  them  not  only  that  this  is  necessary 
and  cannot  be  otherwise,  but  even  that  it  is  good  and 
moral. 

It  would  be  easy  to  believe  that  the  execution  of 
Christ's  teaching  is  hard  and  terrible  and  painful,  if  the 
execution  of  the  teaching  of  the  world  were  very  easy  and 
harmless  and  agreeable.  But  the  teaching  of  the  world 
is  much  harder,  much  more  dangerous  and  painful  of  exe- 
cution than  Christ's  teaching. 

At  one  time,  they  say,  there  existed  martyrs  of  Christ, 
but  they  were  the  exception  :  with  us  they  are  counted 
to  the  number  of  380,000,  —  both  voluntary  and  involun- 
tary martyrs,  —  for  the  period  of  eighteen  hundred  years. 
Count  up  the  martyrs  of  the  world,  and  for  each  mar- 
tyr of  Christ  you  will  find  one  thousand  martyrs  of  the 
teaching  of  the  world,  whose  sufferings  were  one  hundred 
times  more  terrible.  For  tlie  present  century  alone  they 
figure  thirty  millions  of  men  killed  in  wars. 


MY   KELIGION  165 

All  these  are  martyrs  of  the  teaching  of  the  world,  who 
needed,  not  to  follow  Christ's  teaching,  but  only  to  refuse 
to  follow  the  teaching  of  the  world,  and  they  would  have 
been  freed  from  suffering  and  death. 

A  man  need  but  do  what  he  wants  to,  —  refuse  to  go 
to  war,  —  and  he  will  be  sent  to  dig  ditches,  and  will  not 
be  tortured  to  death  at  Sevastopol  or  Plevna.  A  man 
need  but  refuse  to  believe  in  the  teaching  of  the  world, 
that  it  is  necessary  to  put  on  galoshes  and  a  chain  and  to 
have  a  useless  drawing-room,  and  that  it  is  necessary 
to  do  all  those  foohsh  things  which  the  teaching  of  the 
world  demands  of  him,  and  he  will  not  know  that  tanta- 
lizing labour,  and  those  sufferings  and  eternal  cares  and 
work  without  rest  and  without  aim ;  he  will  not  be  de- 
prived of  communion  with  Nature,  of  his  favourite  work, 
of  his  family,  of  his  health,  and  will  not  senselessly  die 
an  agonizing  death. 

We  need  not  be  martyrs  in  the  name  of  Christ, — 
Christ  does  not  teach  this.  He  teaches  us  to  stop  tor- 
menting ourselves  in  the  name  of  the  false  teaching  of  the 
world. 

Christ's  teaching  has  a  deep  metaphysical  meaning ; 
Christ's  teaching  has  a  universally  human  meaning ; 
Christ's  teaching  has  a  very  simple,  clear,  practical  mean- 
ing for  the  life  of  each  individual  man.  This  meaning 
may  be  expressed  as  follows :  Christ  teaches  people  not 
to  do  anything  foolish.  In  this  consists  the  very  simple, 
universally  accessible  meaning  of  Christ's  teaching. 

Christ  says,  Be  not  angry,  consider  no  one  beneath 
thee,  —  for  it  is  foolish.  If  thou  shalt  be  angry,  and 
offend  people,  it  will  be  worse  for  thee.  Again  Christ 
says,  Do  not  run  after  women,  but  come  together  with 
one  woman,  —  for  that  will  be  better  for  thee.  Again  he 
says,  Make  no  promises  to  any  one  about  anything,  or  else 
they  will  compel  thee  to  do  foolish  and  criminal  things. 
Again  he  says,  Do  not  repay  evil  with  evil,  or  else  the 


166  MY    RELIGION 

evil  will  come  back  to  thee  as  a  greater  evil  than  before, 
like  the  poised  beam  above  the  honey,  which  kills  the 
bear.  And  again  he  says,  Do  not  regard  people  as  stran- 
gers, simply  because  they  live  in  another  country  and 
speak  another  language.  If  thou  shalt  consider  them 
enemies,  and  they  shall  consider  thee  an  enemy,  it  will 
only  be  worse  for  thee.  And  so,  do  none  of  these  foohsh 
things,  and  thou  wilt  be  better  off. 

"  Yes,"  people  reply  to  this,  "  but  the  world  is  so  con- 
structed that  it  is  more  painful  to  oppose  this  order  than 
to  live  in  accordance  with  it.  If  a  man  should  decline  to 
do  military  service,  he  would  be  put  into  prison  and  per- 
haps be  shot.  If  a  man  were  not  to  secure  his  life  by 
obtaining  what  is  necessary  for  him  and  for  his  family,  he 
and  his  family  would  starve." 

Thus  people  speak,  trying  to  defend  the  structure  of 
the  world,  but  they  themselves  do  not  think  in  this  man- 
ner. They  speak  so  only  because  they  cannot  deny  the 
justice  of  the  teaching  of  Christ,  whom  they  profess  to 
believe,  and  they  have  to  justify  themselves  in  some  way 
for  not  fulfilling  this  teaching.  But  they  do  not  think  so, 
and  have  never  thought  so.  They  believe  in  the  teaching 
of  the  world,  and  only  use  the  excuse  which  the  church 
has  taught  them,  that  in  fulfilling  Christ's  teaching  it  is 
necessary  to  suffer  much,  and  so  they  never  even  try  to 
carry  out  Christ's  teaching.  We  see  endless  sufferings 
which  people  endure  in  the  name  of  the  teaching  of  the 
world,  but  we  never  see  in  our  time  any  sufferings  for 
the  sake  of  Christ's  teaching.  Thirty  millions  have 
perished  in  wars  for  tlie  sake  of  the  teaching  of  the 
world ;  thousands  of  millions  have  perished  in  an  agoniz- 
ing life  in  the  name  of  the  teaching  of  the  world ;  but  no 
millions,  not  even  thousands,  nor  dozens,  nor  even  one 
man  is  known  to  me,  who  died  or  lived  an  agonizing  life, 
starving  and  freezing,  for  the  sake  of  Christ's  teaching. 
This  is  only  a  ridiculous  excuse,  which  proves  to  what 


MY    RELIGION  167 

degree  Christ's  teaching  is  unknown  to  us.  Not  only  do 
we  fail  to  share  it,  but  we  have  never  taken  it  seriously. 
The  church  has  troubled  itself  to  explain  to  us  Christ's 
teaching  in  such  a  way  that  it  presents  itself,  not  as 
a  teaching  of  life,  but  as  a  scarecrow. 

Christ  calls  men  to  the  spring  of  water,  which  is  here, 
near  them.  People  are  tormented  by  thirst:  they  eat 
mud  and  drink  the  blood  of  one  another,  but  the  teachers 
have  told  them  that  they  will  perish,  if  they  go  to  the  spring 
to  which  Christ  is  calling  them.  And  the  people  believe 
them,  and  are  tormented,  and  die  of  thirst  within  two 
steps  of  the  water,  without  daring  to  approach  them. 
But  we  need  only  believe  Christ,  that  he  brought  the 
good  down  upon  earth,  that  he  gives  us,  who  are  thirsty, 
a  spring  of  living  water ;  we  need  only  come  to  him,  in 
order  that  we  may  see  how  tricky  the  deception  of  the 
church  is  and  how  senseless  our  sufferings  are,  while  sal- 
vation is  so  near.  We  need  only  accept  Christ's  teaching 
in  a  straight  and  simple  manner,  in  order  that  we  may  see 
clearly  the  terrible  deception  in  which  we  all  live. 

Generation  after  generation  we  labour  to  provide  for 
our  life  by  means  of  violence  and  of  property  security. 
The  happiness  of  our  Hfe  presents  itself  to  us  as  consisting 
of  the  greatest  possible  power  and  the  largest  amount  of 
possessions.  We  are  so  used  to  this  that  Christ's  teaching, 
which  says  that  man's  happiness  cannot  depend  on  power 
and  possessions  and  that  a  rich  man  cannot  be  happy, 
presents  itself  to  us  as  a  demand  for  a  sacrifice  in  the 
name  of  future  benefits.  But  it  does  not  even  occur  to 
Christ  to  demand  sacrifices  of  us ;  on  the  contrary,  he 
teaches  us  not  to  do  what  is  worse,  but  to  do  what  is  best 
for  us  here,  in  this  life.  Christ,  who  loves  men,  teaches 
them  to  refrain  from  securing  their  lives  by  means  of 
violence  and  of  property,  even  as  men,  loving  their  neigh- 
bours, teach  them  to  refrain  from  fighting  and  getting 
drunk.     He  says  that,  living  without  offering  resistance  to 


168  MT   RELIGION' 

others  and  without  possessions,  men  will  be  happier,  and 
this  he  confirms  by  his  example  of  life.  He  says  that  a 
man  who  lives  according  to  his  teaching  must  be  prepared 
to  die  any  moment  at  the  hands  of  those  who  offer  vio- 
lence, and  from  cold  and  hunger,  and  cannot  count  on  one 
hour  of  his  hfe.  And  this  seems  to  us  to  be  a  terrible 
demand  for  some  sacrifices ;  but  it  is  only  a  confirmation 
of  those  conditions  under  which  every  man  lives  inevitably 
at  all  times.  A  disciple  of  Christ  must  any  minute  be 
prepared  for  sufferings  and  death.  Is  not  a  disciple  of 
the  world  in  the  same  state  ? 

We  are  so  used  to  our  deception  that  everything  we 
do  for  the  supposed  security  of  our  life  —  our  armies,  our 
fortresses,  our  supplies,  our  garments,  our  cures,  all  our 
property,  our  money  —  seems  to  us  to  be  something  real, 
which  seriously  secures  our  life.  We  forget  what  is 
obvious  to  every  one,  what  happened  to  him  who  took 
it  into  his  head  to  build  granaries  in  order  to  secure  him- 
self for  a  long  time  :  he  died  that  very  night.  Everything 
we  do  to  make  our  life  secure  is  precisely  what  the  ostrich 
does,  when  it  stops  to  hide  its  head,  in  order  that  it  may 
not  see  how  it  is  being  killed.  We  do  worse  than  an 
ostrich :  in  order  doubtfully  to  provide  for  a  doubtful  life 
in  the  doubtful  future,  we  certainly  ruin  our  certain 
life  in  the  certain  present. 

The  deception  consists  in  the  fallacious  conviction  that 
our  life  can  be  made  secure  by  our  struggle  with  other 
people.  We  are  so  accustomed  to  this  deception  of  this 
supposed  security  of  our  life  and  of  our  property  that  we 
do  not  notice  what  we  are  losing  for  the  sake  of  it.  And 
we  are  losing  everything,  —  our  whole  life.  Our  whole 
life  is  swallowed  by  the  care  of  making  our  life  secure 
and  of  preparing  for  it,  so  that  nothing  of  life  is  left. 

We  need  but  for  a  moment  renounce  our  habit  and  look 
at  life  from  one  side,  in  order  that  we  may  see  that  every- 
thing we  do  for  the  supposed  security  of  our  life  we  do 


MY    RELIGION  169 

not  at  all  do  in  order  to  make  our  life  secure,  but  only  in 
order  to  forget,  while  we  are  busy  with  it,  that  life 
is  never  secure  and  cannot  be  made  secure.  And  we  not 
only  deceive  ourselves  and  lose  our  present  life  for  an 
imaginary  one,  but  in  this  striving  after  security  we  most 
frequently  lose  precisely  what  we  want  to  make  secure. 
The  French  armed  themselves  in  the  year  1870  in  order 
to  make  their  Hfe  secure,  and  caused  the  destruction  of 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  Frenchmen ;  the  same  thing  is 
done  by  all  nations  that  arm  themselves.  A  rich  man 
makes  his  life  secure  by  the  possession  of  money,  but 
this  same  money  attracts  the  robber,  who  kills  him.  A 
suspicious  man  secures  his  life  by  means  of  a  cure,  and 
this  very  cure  kills  him  slowly,  or,  if  it  does  not  kill  him, 
it  certainly  deprives  him  of  life,  as  it  did  that  sick  man 
who  had  failed  to  live  for  thirty-eight  years,  waiting  for 
the  angel  at  the  pool. 

Christ's  teaching  about  this,  that  it  is  impossible  to 
make  life  secure,  but  that  one  must  be  ready  to  die  at  any 
moment,  is  unquestionably  better  than  the  teaching  of  the 
world  about  the  necessity  of  making  life  secure ;  it  is 
better  by  this,  that  the  inevitableness  of  death  and  the 
insecurity  of  life  remain  the  same  with  either  the  teaching 
of  the  world  or  that  of  Christ,  but  that  life  itself,  according 
to  Christ's  teaching,  is  no  longer  entirely  absorbed  without 
any  residue  in  the  idle  occupation  of  an  imaginary  at- 
tempt at  securing  it :  it  becomes  free,  and  can  be  devoted 
to  its  one  proper  aim,  —  its  own  good  and  the  good  of 
others. 

A  disciple  of  Christ  will  be  poor.  Yes,  that  is,  he  wUl 
always  make  use  of  all  that  good  which  God  has  given 
him.  He  will  not  ruin  his  life.  We  have  expressed  by 
the  word  "  poverty  "  what  is  happiness,  but  the  matter 
itself  has  not  changed  from  it.  When  we  say  he  will  be 
poor,  we  mean  that  he  will  not  be  in  the  city,  but  in  the 
country  ;  he   will   not  sleep  at  home,  but   will  work  ir^ 


170  MY    RELIGION 

the  woods  and  in  the  fields,  and  will  see  the  sunlight,  the 
earth,  the  sky,  the  animals ;  he  will  not  trouble  himself 
with  the  thought  as  to  what  he  will  eat  in  order  to  whet 
his  appetite,  and  what  to  do  to  pass  an  hour,  but  will  be 
hungry  three  times  a  day ;  he  will  not  toss  on  soft  pillows 
and  wonder  how  he  may  save  himself  from  insomnia,  but 
will  sleep ;  he  will  have  children  and  will  live  with 
them  ;  he  will  live  in  free  communion  with  all  people, 
and,  above  all  else,  will  do  nothing  he  does  not  like; 
he  will  not  be  afraid  of  what  will  become  of  him.  He 
will  be  sick,  and  suffer,  and  die  like  all  men  (better  than 
the  rich,  if  we  are  to  judge  from  the  way  the  poor  suffer 
and  die),  but  he  will  live  more  happily.  To  be  poor,  to  be 
a  mendicant,  to  be  a  vagrant  (7rT(«;^o'<?  means  a  vagrant), 
is  precisely  what  Christ  taught,  without  which  it  is  impos- 
sible to  enter  the  kingdom  of  God,  without  which  it  is 
impossible  to  be  happy  here  upon  earth. 

"  But  no  one  will  feed  you,  and  you  will  starve," 
people  reply  to  this.  To  the  retort  that,  living  according 
to  Christ's  teaching,  a  man  will  starve,  Christ  rephed  with 
one  short  utterance  (which  is  interpreted  as  a  justification 
of  the  idleness  of  the  clergy)  (Matt.  x.  10,  Luke  x.  7). 

He  said,  Take  no  scrip  for  your  journey,  neither  two 
coats,  neither  shoes,  nor  yet  staves :  for  the  workman  is 
worthy  of  his  meat.  And  in  the  same  house  remain,  eat- 
ing and  drinking  such  things  as  they  give :  for  the 
labourer  is  worthy  of  his  hire. 

The  labourer  is  worthy  a^to^  ia-rt,  —  word  for  word  it 
means,  he  can  and  shall  have  his  meat.  This  is  a  very 
brief  utterance,  but  for  him  who  understands  it  as  Christ 
understood  it  there  can  no  longer  be  any  discussion  as 
to  this,  that  a  man  who  has  no  property  will  starve.  To 
understand  this  word  in  its  actual  significance,  it  is 
necessary  first  to  reject  the  idea  about  man's  bliss  consist- 
ing in  idleness,  which,  in  consequence  of  the  dogma  of 
redemption,  has  become  so  natural  to  us.     It  is  necessary 


MY    RELIGION  171 

to  reestablish  that  conception,  which  is  characteristic  of 
all  uncorrupted  people,  that  it  is  not  idleness,  but  labour, 
that  forms  a  necessary  condition  of  man's  happiness ;  that 
man  cannot  help  but  work ;  that  it  is  hard  and  tiresome 
not  to  work,  just  as  it  is  hard  and  tiresome  for  an  ant,  a 
horse,  and  any  animal.     It  is  necessary  to  forget  our  wild 
superstition  that  the  condition  of  a  man  who  has  an  inex- 
haustible dollar,  that  is,  a  government  position,  or  the  right 
to  some  land,  or  bonds  with  coupons,  which  make  it  possi- 
ble for  him  to  do  nothing,  is  a  natural,  happy  condition. 
We  must  reconstruct  in  our  conception  that  view  of  labour 
which  is  held  by  all  uncorrupted  people,  and  which  was 
held  by  Christ,  when  he  said  that  the  labourer  was  worthy 
of  his  meat.     Christ  could  not  imagine  any  people  who 
would  look  upon  work  as  a  curse,  and  so  he  could  not 
imagine  a  man  who  did  not  work,  or  did  not  want  to 
work.     He  always  takes  it  for  granted  that  his  disciple 
works.     And  so  he  says :  If  a  man  works,  his  labour  sup- 
ports him ;  and  if  another  man  takes  this  work  to  him- 
self, he  will  support  the  labourer,  even  because  he  makes 
use  of  the  labourer's  work.     Consequently  the  labourer 
will  always  have  his  meat.     He  will  have  no  property, 
but  there  can  be  no  question  as  to  his  support.     The  dif- 
ference between  Christ's  teaching  and  that  of  our  world 
as  relating  to  work  consists  in  this,  that,  according  to  the 
world's  teaching,  work  is  man's  especial  desert,  in  which 
he  vies  with  others,  and  assumes  that  he  has  a  right  to 
a  proportionately  better  support,  the  greater  his  work  is ; 
while,  according  to  Christ's  teaching,  work,  labour,  is  a 
necessary  condition  of  man's  life,  and  the  support  is  its 
inevitable  consequence.     Work  produces  food,  food  pro- 
duces work,  —  such  is  the  eternal  circle :  one  is  a  result 
and  a  cause  of  the  other.     No  matter  how  evil  a  master 
may  be,  he  will  feed  the  labourer,  even  as  he  feeds  the 
horse  which  works  for  him ;  he  will  feed  the  labourer  in 
such  a  way  that  he  can  do  as  much  work  as  possible, 


172  MY    RELIGION 

that  is,  he  will  contribute  to  that  which  forms  man's 
good. 

The  Son  of  man  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to 
minister,  and  to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many.  Ac- 
cording to  Christ's  teaching  every  individual  man  will 
have  the  best  life,  independently  of  what  the  world  is,  if 
he  understands  his  calling,  which  is  not  to  demand  any 
work  from  others,  but  to  devote  his  own  hfe  to  work  for 
others,  to  lay  down  his  life,  a  ransom  for  many.  A  man 
who  acts  in  this  manner,  says  Christ,  is  worthy  of  meat, 
that  is,  he  cannot  help  but  receive  it.  With  the  words, 
"  Man  does  not  live  to  be  worked  for,  but  to  work  for 
others,"  Christ  estabhshes  that  foundation  which  unques- 
tionably secures  man's  material  existence ;  and  ^ith  the 
words,  "  The  workman  is  worthy  of  his  meat,"  Christ 
removes  that  usual  objection  to  the  possibility  of  fulfilhng 
his  teaching,  which  consists  in  this,  that  a  man  who  ful- 
fils Christ's  teaching,  amidst  those  who  do  not  fulfil  it, 
will  perish  of  hunger  and  cold.  Christ  shows  that  a  man 
secures  his  sustenance,  not  by  taking  it  away  from  others, 
but  by  becoming  useful  and  necessary  to  others.  The 
more  necessary  he  is  to  others,  the  more  will  his  existence 
be  made  secure. 

With  the  present  order  of  things,  people  who  do  not 
fulfil  Christ's  laws,  but  work  for  their  neighbour,  though 
they  have  no  possessions,  do  not  starve.  How,  then,  can 
one  object  to  Christ's  teaching,  saying  that  those  who  ful- 
fil his  teaching,  that  is,  wdio  work  for  their  neighbour, 
will  starve  ?  A  man  cannot  starve  so  long  as  the  rich 
have  bread.  In  Eussia  there  are  milhons  of  people,  at 
any  given  moment  of  time,  who  live  without  any  posses- 
sions, supporting  themselves  by  their  work  alone. 

Among  the  Gentiles  a  Christian  will  be  as  secure  as 
among  Christians.  He  works  for  others,  consequently 
he  is  needed  by  them,  and  they  will  feed  him.  Even  a 
dog  that  is  needed  is  fed  and  taken  care  of;  how,  then, 


MY    RELIGION  173 

will  they  not  feed  and  guard  a  man  who  is  needed  by 
all  men  ? 

But  a  sick  man,  a  man  with  a  family,  with  children,  is 
not  wanted,  —  he  cannot  work,  —  and  they  will  stop 
feeding  him,  those  will  say  who  are  bound  to  prove  the 
justice  of  the  beastly  life.  This  they  will  say,  this  they 
say  now,  and  they,  do  not  see  that  they  themselves  who 
say  this  would  like  to  act  thus,  but  are  unable  to  do  so, 
and  act  quite  differently.  These  very  people,  who  do  not 
acknowledge  the  applicability  of  Christ's  teaching,  none 
the  less  fulfil  it.  They  all  the  time  feed  a  sheep,  an  ox, 
a  dog,  which  gets  sick.  They  even  do  not  kill  an  old 
horse,  but  give  it  work  to  do  according  to  its  strength ; 
they  feed  their  family,  the  lambs,  the  young  pigs,  the 
puppies,  in  expectation  of  profit  from  them ;  how,  then, 
will  they  refuse  to  feed  a  useful  man,  when  he  gets  sick, 
and  how  will  they  fail  to  find  appropriate  work  for  the 
old  and  the  young,  and  how  will  they  refuse  to  support 
people  who  will  be  able  later  on  to  do  some  work  for 
them  ? 

Not  only  will  they  do  so,  but  they  are  doing  so  even 
now.  Nine-tenths  of  men,  the  masses,  are  fed  by  one- 
tenth,  by  the  rich  and  the  strong,  as  though  the  masses 
were  beasts  of  burden.  And,  no  matter  how  dark  the 
delusion  in  which  this  one-tenth  lives,  no  matter  how 
much  it  despises  the  remaining  nine-tenths  of  people,  this 
one-tenth  of  the  mighty  never  takes  the  necessary  suste- 
nance away  from  the  nine-tenths,  however  much  they  may 
wish  to  do  so.  The  rich  leave  to  the  poor  as  much  as  is 
necessary  for  them  to  multiply  and  work  for  the  rich. 
Of  late  this  one-tenth  has  been  working  consciously  for 
the  purpose  of  feeding  regularly  the  nine -tenths,  that  is, 
in  order  to  get  as  much  work  out  of  them  as  possible,  and 
to  have  them  multiply  and  rear  new  workmen.  Even 
the  ants  attend  to  the  increase  and  rearing  of  their  milch- 
cows,  so  how  can  men  help  doing  the  same,  —  attend- 


174  MY    RELIGION 

ing  to  the  increase  of  those  who  work  for  them  ?  Work- 
men are  needed,  and  those  who  make  use  of  the  work  will 
always  see  to  it  that  these  workmen  should  not  decrease 
in  numbers. 

The  objection  to  the  practicability  of  Christ's  teaching, 
which  is,  that  if  I  do  not  earn  anything  for  myself  and 
do  not  retain  what  I  earn,  no  one  will  feed  my  family,  is 
just,  but  only  in  respect  to  idle,  useless,  and,  therefore, 
harmful  people,  such  as  are  the  majority  of  our  rich 
classes.  No  one  will  bring  up  the  idle,  unless  it  be  sense- 
less parents,  because  idle  people  are  of  no  use  to  any  one, 
not  even  to  themselves ;  but  even  the  worst  of  people 
will  feed  and  rear  working  people.  Calves  are  brought 
up,  but  a  man  is  a  more  useful  working  animal  than  an 
ox,  and  so  he  has  always  been  valued  in  the  slave  market. 

This  is  the  reason  why  the  children  will  never  be  left 
without  any  cares. 

Man  does  not  live  to  have  others  work  for  him,  but 
himself  to  work  for  others.  He  who  will  work  will  be 
fed. 

These  are  truths  that  are  confirmed  by  the  life  of  the 
whole  world. 

Wherever  man  has  worked  he  has  always  and  every- 
where received  his  sustenance,  just  as  a  horse  receives  its 
feed.  The  worker  has  received  such  a  sustenance  unwill- 
ingly, against  his  will,  for  the  worker  has  wished  but  for 
this,  —  to  be  freed  from  work,  to  earn  as  much  as  possi- 
ble, and  to  sit  down  on  the  shoulders  of  him  who  is  now 
sitting  on  his.  Such  an  unwilling  worker,  an  envious  and 
poor  labourer,  was  not  left  without  his  sustenance,  and 
has  been  even  happier  than  the  one  who  has  not  worked 
and  has  lived  on  the  labours  of  other  men.  How  much 
more  happy  will  the  workman  according  to  Christ's  teach- 
ing be,  if  his  aim  shail  consist  in  doing  as  much  work  as 
possible  and  in  receiving  as  little  as  possible  for  it !  And 
how  much  more  happy  still  will  his  situation  be,  when 


MY    RELIGION  175 

around  him  there  will  Le  a  few,  and  perhaps  many,  like 
him,  who  will  serve  him ! 

Christ's  teaching  about  work  and  its  fruits  is  expressed 
in  the  narrative  of  the  feeding  of  five  and  seven  thousand 
persons  with  two  fishes  and  five  loaves.  Humanity  wiU 
have  the  highest  accessible  good  on  earth,  when  men 
will  not  try  to  swallow  and  use  up  everything  for  them- 
selves, but  will  do  as  Christ  taught  them  at  the  shore  of 
the  sea. 

It  was  necessary  to  feed  thousands  of  people.  One  of 
Christ's  disciples  told  him  that  he  had  seen  several  fishes 
in  the  possession  of  one  man  ;  the  disciples  had  also  sev- 
eral loaves  of  bread.  Jesus  knew  that  not  all  the  people, 
who  had  come  from  a  distance,  had  brought  food  with 
them.  (That  many  had  provisions  is  proved  by  the  fact 
that  all  four  gospels  say  that  at  the  end  of  the  feast  there 
were  gathered  twelve  baskets.  If  none  but  the  boy  had 
had  anything,  there  could  not  have  been  twelve  baskets 
in  the  field.)  If  Christ  had  not  done  what  he  did,  that 
is,  the  miracle  of  feeding  thousands  with  five  loaves,  there 
would  have  happened  what  is  now  taking  place  in  the 
world.  Those  who  had  provisions  would  have  eaten  up 
everything,  even  with  an  effort,  that  nothing  might  be 
left.  The  stingy  might  have  carried  home  anything  that 
was  left.  Those  who  had  nothing  would  have  remained 
hungry,  and  would  have  looked  with  malicious  envy  at 
those  who  were  eating  ;  some  of  them  might,  indeed,  have 
taken  away  some  food  by  force  from  those  who  were 
provident,  and  there  would  have  ensued  quarrels  and 
fights,  and  some  would  have  gone  home  satiated,  while 
others  would  have  been  hungry  and  angry :  there  would 
have  taken  place  what  happens  in  our  life. 

But  Christ  knew  what  he  wanted  to  do  (as  it  says  in 
the  Gospel) ;  he  taught  all  to  sit  round  about  him,  and 
taught  his  disciples  to  offer  to  others  what  they  had, 
and  to  tell  the  others  to  do  likewise.     And  then  it  hap- 


176  MY   RELIGION 

pened  that,  when  all  those  who  had  provisions  did  what 
Christ's  disciples  had  done,  that  is,  offered  their  own  food 
to  others,  all  ate  with  moderation,  and  when  they  went 
around  in  the  circle,  even  those  who  had  had  nothing  at 
first  got  something  to  eat.  And  all  were  fed,  and  much 
bread  was  left,  so  much  of  it  that  twelve  baskets  of  it 
were  collected. 

Christ  teaches  men  that  they  must  consciously  act  in 
this  manner  in  their  lives,  for  such  is  the  law  of  man  and 
of  all  humanity.  Work  is  a  necessary  condition  of  man's 
life,  and  work  gives  the  good  to  man ;  consequently  the 
detention  from  other  men  of  the  fruits  of  one's  own  or  of 
another's  labour  interferes  with  the  good  of  man.  The 
giving  up  of  one's  labours  to  another  contributes  to  the 
good  of  man. 

"If  men  do  not  take  away  from  one  another,  they  will 
starve,"  we  say.  It  seems  that  the  very  opposite  ought 
to  be  said :  if  men  take  things  from  one  another,  there 
will  be  people  who  will  starve,  as  is  actually  the  case. 

Every  man,  no  matter  how  he  may  live,  —  whether 
in  accordance  with  Christ's  teaching  or  with  that  of  the 
world,  —  lives  only  by  the  work  of  other  men.  Other 
men  have  guarded  him  and  given  him  food  and  drink, 
and  guard  and  feed  him  now ;  but,  according  to  the 
world's  teaching,  a  man  compels  others  by  force  and 
threats  to  continue  to  feed  him  and  his  family.  Accord- 
ing to  Christ's  teaching,  a  man  is  just  as  much  taken  care 
of  and  given  food  and  drink  by  others ;  but,  in  order  that 
other  people  may  continue  to  guard  and  feed  him,  he  does 
not  compel  any  one  to  do  so ;  he  tries  himself  to  serve 
others  and  to  be  useful  to  all,  and  thus  becomes  necessary 
for  all.  The  people  of  this  world  will  always  desire  to 
stop  feeding  a  useless  man  who  compels  them  by  force 
to  feed  him,  and  with  the  first  opportunity  not  only  stop 
feeding  him,  but  also  kill  him  as  a  useless  man. 
But    all    men,    no    matter    how    mean    they    may    be, 


MY    RELIGION  177 

will  carefully  feed  and  guard  him  who   is  working  for 
them. 

Which,  then,  is  more  correct,  more  sensible,  and  more 
joyful  ?  To  live  according  to  the  teaching  of  the  world, 
or  according  to  that  of  Christ  ? 


XI. 

Christ's  teaching  establishes  God's  kingdom  upon 
earth.  It  is  not  true  that  the  carrying  out  of  this  teach- 
ing is  difficult:  it  is  not  only  not  difficult,  but  is  even 
inevitable  for  a  man  who  has  become  acquainted  with  it. 
This  teaching  gives  the  one  possible  salvation  from  the 
inevitably  imminent  danger  of  the  perdition  of  the  per- 
sonal life.  Finally,  the  fulfilment  of  this  teaching  not 
only  does  not  invite  to  sufferings  and  deprivations  in  this 
life,  but  also  frees  us  from  nine-tenths  of  the  sufferings 
which  we  endure  in  the  name  of  the  teaching  of  the 
world.  , 

When  I  understood  this,  I  asked  myself :  Why  have  I 
not  fulfilled  this  teaching,  which  gives  me  what  is  good, 
salvation  and  joy,  but  have  fulfilled  something  quite  dif- 
ferent, —  that  which  has  made  me  unhappy  ?  There  could 
be  but  one  answer :  I  did  not  know  the  truth,  —  it  was 
concealed  from  me. 

When  the  meaning  of  Christ's  teaching  was  for  the 
first  time  revealed  to  me,  I  did  not  think  that  the  eluci- 
dation of  this  meaning  would  ever  bring  me  to  the  nega- 
tion of  the  church  teaching.  It  only  seemed  to  me  that 
the  church  had  not  yet  reached  those  deductions  which 
result  from  Christ's  teaching,  but  I  did  not  think  in  the 
least  that  the  newly  revealed  meaning  of  Christ's  teaching 
and  its  deductions  would  bring  discord  between  me  and 
the  church  teaching.  I  was  afraid  of  it,  and  so,  during 
my  investigations,  I  not  only  avoided  finding  any  fault 
witli  the  church  doctrine,  but,  on  the  contrary,  intention- 
ally shut  my  eyes  to  those  propositions  which  seemed 

178 


MY    RELIGION  179 

obscure  and  strange  to  me,  but  did  not  contradict  that 
which  I  regarded  as  the  essence  of  the  Christian  teaching. 

But  the  farther  I  went  in  the  study  of  the  Gospel,  the 
more  clearly  was  there  revealed  to  me  the  meaning  of 
Christ's  teaching  and  the  more  inevitable  became  for  me 
the  choice  between  Christ's  teaching,  which  was  rational, 
clear,  and  in  harmony  with  my  conscience,  and  which 
gave  me  salvation,  and  the  diametrically  opposite  teach- 
ing, which  was  not  in  harmony  with  my  reason  and  my 
conscience,  and  which  gave  me  nothing  but  the  conscious- 
ness of  my  perdition  together  with  all  the  others.  I 
could  not  help  but  reject  one  after  another  the  tenets  of 
the  church.  I  did  this  unwilhngly,  with  a  struggle,  with 
a  desire  to  soften  as  much  as  possible  my  dissension  with 
the  church,  to  keep  from  separating  from  it,  from  being 
deprived  of  the  most  joyous  support  in  faith,  —  of  my 
communion  with  many.  But  when  I  finished  my  work, 
I  saw  that,  no  matter  how  much  I  tried  to  retain  as  much 
of  the  church  doctrine  as  possible,  nothing  was  left  of  it. 
Not  only  was  there  nothing  left,  but  I  convinced  myself 
that  nothing  could  be  left. 

Just  as  I  was  finishing  my  work  the  following  incident 
occurred :  my  young  son  told  me  that  between  two  of 
our  servants,  uneducated  men  who  could  scarcely  read, 
there  was  going  on  a  dispute  in  regard  to  an  article  in  a 
religious  book,  in  which  it  said  that  it  was  not  sinful  to 
kill  criminals  or  to  kill  in  a  war,  I  did  not  believe  it 
was  possible  for  such  a  thing  to  be  printed,  and  so  asked 
for  the  book.  The  book  under  dispute  is  called  "  Exposi- 
tory Prayer-book,  Third  Edition,  Eightieth  Thousand. 
Moscow,  1879."     On  p.  163  of  this  book  it  says : 

"  What  is  the  sixth  commandment  of  God  ?  —  Thou 
shalt  not  kill.  —  What  does  God  forbid  by  this  command- 
ment ?  —  He  forbids  killing,  that  is,  depriving  a  man  of 
life.  —  Is  it  sinful  legally  to  put  to  death  a  criminal  and 
to  kill  an  enemy  in  war  ?  —  It  is  not     A  criminal  is  de- 


180  MY    RELIGION 

prived  of  life  in  order  to  put  a  stop  to  the  great  evil  which 
he  is  doing :  the  enemy  is  killed  in  war,  because  in  a  war 
we  fight  for  our  emperor  and  our  country."  To  these  words 
is  limited  the  explanation  of  why  the  commandment  of 
God  is  put  aside.     I  did  not  believe  my  eyes. 

The  disputants  asked  for  my  opinion  in  the  matter  of 
their  dispute.  I  told  the  one  who  acknowledged  the  jus- 
tice of  what  was  printed,  that  the  explanation  was  not 
correct. 

"  But  how  do  they  print  incorrectly  against  the  law  ? " 
he  asked  me. 

I  could  not  answer  him.  I  kept  the  book  and  glanced 
it  through.  The  book  contains:  (1)  thirty-one  prayers 
with  instructions  as  to  genuflexions  and  the  putting  to- 
,  gether  of  fingers  ;  (2)  an  exposition  of  the  Symbol  of  Faith  ; 
(3)  unexplained  extracts  from  the  fifth  chapter  of  Matthew, 
which  for  some  reason  are  called  commandments  for  the 
attainment  of  blessedness ;  (4)  the  ten  commandments  of 
Moses  with  explanations,  which  for  the  most  part  make 
them  void,  and  (5)  troparia  for  holidays. 

As  I  have  said,  I  tried  not  only  to  avoid  judging  the 
ecclesiastic  faith,  but  also  to  see  it  from  its  best  side,  and 
so  did  not  hunt  for  its  weak  sides ;  though  I  well  knew 
its  academic  literature,  I  was  absolutely  unacquainted 
with  its  didactic  literature.  The  prayer-book,  which  was 
disseminated  in  such  an  enormous  number  of  copies  as  late 
as  1879,  and  which  caUed  forth  the  doubts  of  the  simplest 
kind  of  men,  startled  me. 

I  could  not  believe  that  the  purely  pagan  contents  of 
the  prayer-book,  which  had  nothing  Christian  in  it,  could 
be  a  doctrine  which  the  church  consciously  disseminated 
among  the  masses.  In  order  to  verify  it,  I  bought  all  the 
books  published  by  the  Synod,  or  "  under  its  auspices," 
which  contained  brief  expositions  of  the  church's  faith 
for  children  and  for  the  masses  and  read  them  all. 

Their  contents  were  almost  new  to  me.     When  I  had 


MY    RELIGION  181 

studied  religion,  these  books  had  not  yet  existed.  So  far 
as  I  remember,  there  did  not  exist  the  commandments  of 
the  beatitudes,  nor  the  doctrine  that  it  was  not  sinful  to 
kill.  It  does  not  exist  in  any  of  the  old  Russian  Cate- 
chisms. It  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  Catechism  of  Peter 
Mogila,  nor  in  those  of  Platon,  nor  in  that  of  Byelyakov, 
nor  in  the  short  Catholic  Catechisms.  This  innovation 
was  made  by  Filar^t,  who  also  composed  a  Catechism  for 
the  military  profession.  The  Expository  Catechism  is 
based  on  it.  The  basal  book  is  the  "  Extensive  Christian 
Catechism  of  the  Orthodox  Church  for  the  Use  of  All 
Orthodox  Christians,"  published  by  order  of  his  Imperial 
Majesty. 

The  book  is  divided  into  three  parts :  on  faitt,  on  hope, 
and  on  charity.  In  the  first  there  is  an  analysis  of  the 
Nicene  Symbol  of  Faith.  In  the  second  there  is  an  an- 
alysis of  the  Lord's  Prayer  and  of  the  eight  verses  of  the 
fifth  chapter  of  Matthew,  which  form  the  introduction  to 
the  sermon  on  the  mount  and  which  for  some  reason  are 
called  the  commandments  for  the  attainment  of  blessed- 
ness. (These  two  parts  treat  of  the  dogmas  of  the  church, 
of  prayers  and  sacraments,  but  there  is  no  teaching  about 
life.)  In  the  third  part  there  is  an  exposition  of  the  duties 
of  a  Christian.  In  this  part,  which  is  entitled  "  On 
Charity,''  there  is  an  exposition  of  the  ten  commandments 
of  Mos6s,  and  not  of  the  commandments  of  Christ.  The 
commandments  of  Moses  seem  to  be  expounded  merely 
in  order  to  teach  people  not  to  fulfil  them  and  to  act  in 
a  contrary  manner.  After  each  commandment  there  is  a 
provisory  clause  which  destroys  the  commandment. 

In  reference  to  the  first  commandment,  which  enjoins 
us  to  worship  the  one  God,  the  Catechism  teaches  us  to 
worship  angels  and  saints,  not  to  speak  of  the  Mother  of 
God  and  the  three  persons  of  God  (Explan.  Cat.  pp.  107- 
108).  In  reference  to  the  second  commandment, —  about 
making  no  idols,  —  the  Catechism  teaches  us  to  worship 


182  .  MY    RELIGION" 

the  icons  (p.  108).  In  reference  to  the  third  command- 
ment, —  about  swearing  in  vain,  —  the  Catechism  teaches 
men  to  swear  at  every  command  of  the  legal  power  (p. 
iii).  In  reference  to  the  fourth  commandment,  —  about 
keeping  the  Sabbath,  —  the  Catechism  teaches  us  to  cele- 
brate the  Sunday,  and  not  the  Sabbath,  and  thirteen  great 
and  a  multitude  of  minor  holidays,  and  to  fast  at  all  fasts, 
Wednesdays,  and  Fridays  (pp.  112-115).  In  reference  to 
the  fifth  commandment,  —  about  honouring  father  and 
mother,  —  the  Catechism  teaches  us  "  to  honour  the  em- 
peror, the  countiy,  the  spiritual  pastors,  ivho  command  in 
various  relations  "  (sic) ;  and  about  the  honouring  of  the 
commanders  there  are  three  pages  with  a  list  of  all  kinds 
of  commanders :  "  commanders  in  schools,  civil  command- 
ers, judges,  military  commanders,  masters  (sic)  in  relation 
to  those  who  serve  them  and  whom  they  own  "  (sic)  (pp. 
116-119).  I  am  quoting  from  the  Catechism  of  the  year 
1864.  Twenty  years  have  passed  since  the  abolition  of 
servitude,  and  no  one  has  taken  the  trouble  even  of  cast- 
ing out  this  phrase  which,  on  the  occasion  of  God's  com- 
mandment to  honour  our  parents,  was  introduced  into  the 
Catechism  for  the  purpose  of  supporting  and  justifying 
slavery. 

In  reference  to  the  sixth  commandment,  thou  shalt  not 
kill,  —  men  are  taught  from  the  very  first  hues  to  kill 
others. 

"  Q.  What  is  forbidden  in  the  sixth  commandment  ? 

"  A.  The  killing  of  our  neighbour  in  any  manner  what- 
soever. 

"  Q.  Is  every  killing  a  murder  against  the  law  ? 

"  A.  It  is  not  illegal  murder,  when  the  killing  is  done 
as  a  diity,  such  as :  (1)  when  a  criminal  is  put  to  death 
according  to  legal  process ;  (2)  when  an  enemy  is  killed 
in  a  war  waged  for  the  emperor  and  the  country."  (The 
italics  are  in  the  original.)     And  further  on  : 

"  Q.  What  cases  may  be  referred  to  illegal  murder  ? 


MY   KELIGION  183 

"A.  .  .  .  when  one  conceals  or  frees  a  murderer." 

And  this  is  printed  and  forcibly  impressed  in  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  copies  and  under  the  threat  of  punishment 
upon  all  Eussians  in  the  form  of  a  Christian  doctrine. 
The  whole  Eussian  nation  is  taught  this.  This  is  taught 
to  all  innocent  angel-children,  whom  Christ  asks  not  to 
have  driven  away  from  him,  because  theirs  is  the  kingdom 
of  God,  —  those  children  whom  we  must  resemble  in  order 
that  we  may  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God,  whom  we 
must  resemble  in  order  that  we  may  not  know  it, — 
those  children  of  whom  Christ,  defending  them,  said,  Woe 
unto  him  that  offendeth  one  of  these  little  ones.  And  it 
is  these  children  that  are  taught  by  force  that  this  is  the 
one  sacred  law  of  God. 

These  are  not  proclamations  that  are  secretly  distrib- 
uted at  the  peril  of  hard  labour,  but  such  that  a  failure  to 
agree  with  them  is  punished  by  hard  labour.  As  I  am 
writing  these  words  I  feel  a  creeping  sensation,  because  I 
permit  myself  to  say  that  it  is  impossible  to  change  the 
chief  commandment  of  God,  which  is  written  down  in  all 
laws  and  in  all  hearts,  with  meaningless  words,  such  as 
as  a  duty,  for  the  emperor  and  the  country,  and  that 
people  ought  not  to  be  taught  this. 

Yes,  there  has  happened  what  Christ  warned  people 
against,  when  he  said  (Luke  xi.  33-36  and  Matt.  vi.  23): 
If  the  light  that  is  in  thee  be  darkness,  how  great  is  that 
darkness ! 

The  hght  that  is  in  us  has  become  darkness,  and  the 
darkness  in  wliich  we  live  has  become  terrible. 

Woe  unto  you,  said  Christ,  woe  unto  you,  scribes  and 
Pharisees,  hypocrites  !  for  ye  shut  up  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  against  men :  for  ye  neither  go  in  yourselves, 
neither  suffer  ye  them  that  are  entering  to  go  in.  Woe 
unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites !  for  ye  devour 
widows'  houses,  and  for  a  pretence  make  long  prayer: 
therefore  ye  are  the  more  guilty.     Woe  unto  you,  scribes 


184  MY    RELIGION 

and  Pharisees,  hypocrites !  for  ye  compass  sea  and  land  to 
make  one  proselyte,  and  when  he  is  made,  ye  make  him 
worse  than  he  was.     Woe  unto  you,  ye  bhnd  guides ! 

Woe  unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites !  be- 
cause ye  build  the  tombs  of  the  prophets,  and  garnish  the 
sepulchres  of  the  righteous,  and  assume  that  if  ye  had 
lived  in  the  days  when  the  prophets  were  killed,  you 
would  not  have  been  partakers  with  them  in  their  blood. 
Wherefore  ye  be  witnesses  unto  yourselves,  that  ye  are 
like  them  that  killed  the  prophets.  Fill  ye  up  then  the 
measure  which  was  begun  by  those  that  are  hke  you. 
And  I  will  send  you  prophets,  and  wise  men,  and  scribes : 
and  some  of  them  ye  shall  kill  and  crucify  ;  and  some  of 
them  shall  ye  scourge  in  your  assemblies  and  persecute 
from  city  to  city :  that  upon  you  may  come  all  the  right- 
eous blood  shed  upon  the  earth  from  Abel. 

All  blasphemy  shall  be  forgiven  unto  men:  but  the 
blasphemy  against  the  Holy  Ghost  shall  not  be  forgiven 
unto  men. 

This  sounds  as  though  it  had  been  written  but  yester- 
day against  those  men  who  now  no  longer  compass  sea  and 
land,  blaspheming  against  the  Holy  Ghost  and  guiding 
people  to  a  faith  which  makes  them  worse,  but  outright 
force  them  to  receive  this  faith  and  persecute  and  ruin 
all  those  prophets  and  righteous  men  who  try  to  destroy 
their  deception. 

I  became  convinced  that  the  church  doctrine,  even 
though  it  has  called  itself  Christian,  is  that  same  darkness 
against  wliich  Christ  fought  and  commanded  his  disciples 
to  fight. 

Christ's  teaching,  like  every  religious  teaching,  contains 
two  sides  :  (1)  the  teaching  about  the  life  of  men, —  how 
each  individually  and  all  together  have  to  live,  —  the 
ethical  teaching,  and  (2)  an  explanation  why  men  must 
live  in  this  and  not  that  way,  —  the  metaphysical  teach- 


MY    RELIGION  185 

ing.  One  is  the  consequence  and  at  the  same  time  the 
cause  of  the  other.  A  man  must  live  thus  because  such 
is  his  destination,  or,  the  destination  of  man  is  such,  and 
so  he  must  Hve  accordingly.  These  two  sides  of  every 
teaching  are  to  be  found  in  all  the  religions  of  the  world. 
Such  is  the  religion  of  the  Brahmins,  of  Confucius,  of 
Buddha,  of  Moses,  and  such  also  is  Christ's  religion. 
It  teaches  life,  how  to  live,  and  explains  why  you  must 
live  in  this  manner  and  not  otherwise. 

But  what  has  happened  with  all  the  teachings,  with 
Brahmanism,  Judaism,  Buddhism,  has  also  happened 
with  Christ's  teaching.  Men  depart  from  the  teaching 
about  life,  and  among  the  number  of  men  there  appear 
such  as  undertake  to  justify  this  departure.  These  men, 
who,  according  to  Christ's  expression,  seat  themselves  in 
Moses'  seat,  explain  the  metaphysical  side  of  the  teaching 
in  such  a  way  that  the  ethical  demands  of  the  teaching 
become  non-obligatory  and  give  way  to  external  worship, 
to  rites.  This  phenomenon  is  common  to  all  religions, 
but  never,  it  seems  to  me,  has  this  phenomenon  been 
expressed  with  such  lucidity  as  in  Christianity.  It  found 
here  such  a  lucid  expression,  because  Christ's  teaching  is 
the  most  exalted  teaching ;  and  it  is  most  exalted,  because 
the  metaphysics  and  the  ethics  of  Christ's  teaching  are  to 
such  a  degree  inseparably  connected  and  defined  by  one 
another  that  it  is  impossible  to  separate  one  from  the 
other,  without  depriving  the  whole  teaching  of  its  mean- 
ing and  also  because  Christ's  teaching  is  in  itself  a  protes- 
tantism, that  is,  a  negation  not  only  of  the  ritual  precepts 
of  Judaism,  but  also  of  every  external  worship  ;  and  so 
this  rupture  could  not  help  but  completely  pervert  the 
teaching  and  deprive  it  of  every  sense.  And  so  it  hap- 
pened. 

The  rupture  between  the  teaching  about  life  and  the 
explanation  of  life  began  with  the  preaching  of  Paul,  who 
did  not  know  the  ethical  teaching  which  is  expressed  in 


186 


MY    KELIGION 


the  Gospel  of  Matthew,  and  who  preached  a  metaphysico- 
cabalistic  theory,  which  was  foreign  to  Christ ;  it  was 
fully  accomplished  in  the  time  of  Constantine,  when  it 
was  found  possible  to  clothe  the  whole  pagan  structure 
of  life,  without  changing  it,  in  Christian  garments  and 
then  pronounce  it  Christian. 

From  the  time  of  Constantine,  a  pagan  of  the  pagans, 
whom  the  church  for  all  his  crimes  and  vices  counts 
among  the  number  of  the  saints,  there  begin  the  councils, 
and  the  centre  of  gravity  of  Christianity  is  transferred 
entirely  to  the  metaphysical  side  of  the  teaching.  This 
metaphysical  teaching,  with  its  concomitant  rites,  departs 
more  and  more  from  its  fundamental  meaning  and  arrives 
at  what  it  has  arrived  at  now,  at  a  teaching  which  ex- 
plains the  mysteries  of  the  heavenly  life,  which  are  most 
inaccessible  to  the  human  understanding,  and  offers  the 
most  complicated  divine  rites,  but  gives  no  religious 
teaching  whatever  about  the  earthly  life. 

All  religions,  except  the  Christianity  of  the  churches, 
demand  of  those  who  confess  them  not  only  certain  rites, 
but  also  the  execution  of  certain  good  acts  and  the  refrain- 
ing from  evil  acts.  Judaism  demands  circumcision,  the 
observance  of  the  Saturday,  of  almsgiving,  of  the  year  of 
the  jubilee,  and  many  other  things.  Mohammedanism 
demands  circumcision,  daily  fivefold  prayers,  a  tithe  for 
the  poor,  worshipping  before  the  grave  of  the  prophet,  and 
many  other  things.  The  same  is  true  of  all  other  relig- 
ions. Whether  these  demands  be  good  or  bad,  they  are 
demands  for  acts.  Pseudo-Christianity  is  the  only  one 
which  demands  nothing.  There  is  nothing  which  a  Chris- 
tian is  obliged  to  do,  and  nothing  from  wliich  he  is  obliged 
to  abstain,  unless  we  consider  fasts  and  prayers,  which 
the  church  itself  regards  as  not  of  an  obligatory  nature. 
All  a  pseudo-Christian  has  to  do  is  to  attend  to  the  sacra- 
ments ;  but  the  sacraments  are  not  performed  by  the 
believer  himself,  but  by  some  one  else.     A  pseudo-Chris- 


MY   RELIGION  187 

tian  is  not  obliged  to  do  anything,  nor  to  abstain  from 
anything,  in  order  that  he  may  be  saved,  for  the  church 
performs  over  him  everything  necessary :  he  will  be 
baptized  and  anointed  with  chrism,  and  will  receive  his 
communion  and  extreme  unction,  and  give  his  confession, 
even  though  it  be  a  dumb  confession,  and  will  be  prayed 
for,  —  and  he  is  saved.  Since  the  days  of  Constantine, 
the  Christian  church  has  demanded  no  acts  from  its 
members ;  it  even  never  asserted  any  demands  for  ab- 
staining from  anything.  The  Christian  church  has  recog- 
nized and  sanctified  everything  there  was  in  the  pagan 
world.  It  has  recognized  and  sanctified  divorce,  and 
slavery,  and  courts,  and  all  those  powers  which  existed 
before,  and  wars,  and  capital  punishment,  and  at  baptism 
has  demanded  only  a  verbal  renunciation  of  evil,  and  that 
only  in  the  beginning ;  later,  when  they  began  to  baptize 
children,  they  stopped  asking  even  for  that. 

The  church,  which  in  words  recognized  Christ's  teach- 
ing, in  life  directly  denied  it. 

Instead  of  guiding  the  world  in  its  life,  the  church, 
to  please  the  world,  so  interpreted  Christ's  metaphysical 
teaching  that  from  it  there  resulted  no  demands  for  life, 
and  thus  it  did  not  keep  people  from  living  as  they  had 
lived.  The  church  made  a  concession  to  the  world,  and, 
having  made  this  concession  to  the  world,  it  followed  it. 
The  world  did  everything  which  it  wished,  leaving  it  to 
the  church  to  keep  up  with  it  as  best  it  could  in  its  expla- 
nations of  the  meaning  of  life.  The  world  arranged  its 
life,  which  iu  everything  ran  counter  to  Christ's  teaching, 
and  the  church  invented  allegories  to  prove  that  men, 
though  living  contrary  to  Christ's  lav7,  in  reality  were 
living  in  harmony  with  it ;  aud  thus  it  ended  by  this, 
that  the  world  began  to  Hve  a  life  which  was  worse  than 
the  pagan  life,  and  the  church  began  not  only  to  jus- 
tify this  life,  but  also  to  assert  that  Christ's  teaching  con- 
sisted in  nothing  but  this. 


188  MY    RELIGION 

But  there  came  a  time  when  the  light  of  Christ's  true 
teaching,  as  it  was  in  the  gospels,  despite  the  fact  that  the 
church,  feeling  its  unrighteousness,  tried  to  conceal  it  (by 
forbidding  translations  of  the  Bible),  —  there  came  a  time 
when  this  light  through  the  so-called  sectarians,  even 
through  the  free-thinkers  of  the  world,  penetrated  among 
the  people,  and  the  incorrectness  of  the  church  doctrine 
became  manifest  to  men,  and  they  began  to  change  their 
former  life,  which  the  church  justified,  on  the  basis  of 
this  teaching  of  Christ,  which  came  down  to  us  in  spite 
of  the  church. 

Thus  men,  m  spite  of  the  church,  have  abohshed 
slavery,  which  the  church  had  justified,  and  religious 
iuquisitions,  and  the  power  of  emperors  and  popes,  which 
the  church  sanctifies,  and  have  now  begun  the  next 
abolition  in  order,  that  of  property  and  of  states.  The 
church  has  never  asserted  itself,  and  even  now  cannot 
assert  itself,  because  the  abolition  of  these  injustices  of 
life  has  taken  place  on  the  basis  of  that  very  Christian 
teaching  which  the  church  has  preached,  though  trying 
to  pervert  it. 

The  teaching  about  the  life  of  men  has  been  emanci- 
pated from  the  church,  and  has  estabhshed  itself  inde- 
pendently of  it. 

The  church  still  possesses  the  explanations,  but  the 
explanations  of  what  ?  A  metaphysical  explanation  of  a 
teaching  has  a  meaning  only  when  that  teaching  of  Hfe 
exists  which  it  explains;  but  the  church  no  longer  pos- 
sesses any  explanation  of  life.  It  has  only  an  explanation 
of  that  life  which  it  once  established,  and  which  no  longer 
exists.  If  the  church  still  has  some  explanations  of  that 
life  which  existed  before,  such  as  the  explanations  of  the 
Catechism  that  it  is  permissible  to  kill  in  the  exercise  of 
a  duty,  no  one  now  believes  in  it.  All  the  church  has 
left  now  is  temples,  icons,  gold  stuffs,  and  words. 

The  church  has  carried  the  light  of  the  Christian  teach- 


MY    RELIGION  189 

ing  about  life  through  eighteen  centuries  and,  wishing  to 
conceal  it  in  its  garments,  has  burned  herself  in  its  flame. 
The  world  with  its  structure,  which  was  sanctified  by  the 
church,  has  rejected  the  church  in  the  name  of  those 
foundations  of  Christianity  which  the  church  has  brought 
through  in  spite  of  itself,  and  is  getting  along  without  it. 
The  fact  is  accomplished,  and  it  is  impossible  to  conceal 
it.  Everything  which  lives  and  does  not  flabbily  rankle, 
not  living,  but  being  only  in  everybody's  way,  everything 
which  hves  in  our  European  world  has  defected  from  the 
church  and  from  all  churches  and  lives  its  own  life  inde- 
pendently of  the  church.  Let  not  people  say  that  this  is 
so  in  the  rotten  Western  Europe  ;  our  Russia,  with  its  mil- 
lions of  rationalistic  Christians,  both  educated  and  unedu- 
cated, who  have  rejected  the  church  doctrine,  shows 
conclusivelv  that,  in  the  sense  of  the  defection  from  the 
church,  it  is,  thank  God,  more  rotten  than  Europe. 

Everything  which  is  alive  is  independent  of  the 
church. 

The  power  of  the  state  is  based  on  tradition,  on  science, 
on  popular  election,  on  rude  force,  on  anything  you  please 
but  the  church. 

Wars  and  the  relations  of  states  among  themselves  are 
established  on  the  principle  of  nationality,  equilibrium,  on 
anything  you  please  but  the  principles  of  the  church. 

The  institutions  of  the  state  directly  ignore  the 
church  ;  the  idea  that  the  church  can  be  the  foundation 
of  the  court,  of  property,  is  only  ridiculous  in  our  time. 

Science  not  only  does  not  cooperate  with  the  church 
doctrine,  but  even  involuntarily,  without  wishing  it,  is  in 
its  development  always  inimical  to  the  church. 

Art,  which  formerly  served  the  church  alone,  has  now 
departed  from  it. 

Not  only  has  all  life  been  emancipating  itself  from  the 
church,  but  this  life  has  no  other  relation  to  the  church 
than  that  of  contempt,  so  long  as  the  church  does  not 


190  MY    RELIGION 

meddle  with  the  affairs  of  life,  and  nothing  but  hatred, 
the  moment  the  church  endeavours  to  remind  it  of  its 
former  rights.  If  tlie  form  which  we  call  the  church  still 
exists,  it  is  so  because  people  are  afraid  of  breaking  the 
vessel  which  once  held  such  precious  contents ;  only  in 
this  way  it  is  possible  to  explain  the  present  existence  of 
Catholicism,  Orthodoxy,  and  various  Protestant  churches. 

All  the  churches,  the  Catholic,  the  Oithodox,  and  the 
Protestant,  resemble  guards  who  carefully  guard  a  pris- 
oner who  has  long  ago  left  the  prison  and  is  walking 
among  the  guards  aud  even  fighting  with  them.  Every- 
thing the  world  now  lives  by,  socialism,  communism,  po- 
litico-economic questions,  utilitarianism,  the  freedom  and 
equality  of  men  and  classes  of  women,  all  the  moral  con- 
cepts of  men,  the  sanctity  of  labour,  the  sanctity  of 
reason,  the  sciences,  the  arts,  everything  which  moves  the 
world  and  appears  inimical  to  the  church,  —  all  those 
parts  of  the  teaching  which,  without  knowing  it,  the 
church  has  brought  down  together  with  Christ's  teaching, 
which  is  concealed  by  it. 

In  our  time  the  life  of  the  world  proceeds  in  its  own 
way,  quite  independently  of  the  teaching  of  the  church. 
This  teaching  has  remained  so  far  behind  that  the  men  of 
the  world  no  longer  hear  the  voices  of  the  teachers  of  the 
church.  Indeed,  there  is  nothing  to  hear,  because  the 
church  gives  explanations  only  of  that  structure  of  life 
which  the  world  has  outgrovm,  or  which  no  longer  exists 
at  all,  or  which  is  irrevocably  being  destroyed. 

People  were  out  in  a  boat  and  rowing  it,  while  the 
steersman  was  at  the  helm.  The  people  entrusted  them- 
selves to  the  steersman,  and  he  guided  them  well;  but 
there  came  a  time  when  another  steersman  took  his  place, 
and  he  did  not  steer  the  boat.  The  boat  moved  fast  and 
with  ease.  At  first  they  did  not  notice  that  the  new 
steersman  did  not  steer,  aud  they  were  glad  that  the  boat 
moved  so  easily.     But  later,  when  they  convinced  them- 


MY    RELIGION  191 

selves  that  the  new  steersman  was  not  needed,  they  began 
to  laugh  at  him,  and  drove  him  away. 

All  this  would  be  nothing,  but  the  trouble  is  that, 
under  the  iuiluence  of  their  annoyance  with  the  useless 
steersman,  people  have  forgotten  that  it  is  impossible  to 
know  whither  one  is  saihng,  if  there  is  no  steersman.  The 
same  thing  has  happened  with  Christian  society.  The 
church  does  not  steer,  and  it  is  easy  to  sail,  and  we  have 
sailed  a  distance  away,  and  all  the  successes  of  science,  of 
which  our  nineteenth  century  is  so  proud,  are  simply  this, 
that  we  are  sailing  without  a  helm.  We  are  sailing,  with- 
out knowing  whither.  We  are  living,  and  forming  this 
our  life,  and  absolutely  fail  to  know  for  what  purpose. 
But  it  is  impossible  to  sail  and  row,  without  knowing 
whither,  and  it  is  impossible  to  live  and  form  our  life, 
without  knowing  for  what  purpose. 

If  people  did  nothing  themselves,  but  were  by  an  exter- 
nal force  placed  in  that  position  in  which  they  are,  they 
would  be  able  to  answer  the  question  as  to  why  we  are 
in  this  position  in  a  very  rational  manner,  by  saying : 
We  do  not  know,  but  we  got  into  this  position,  and  we 
are  in  it.  But  men  create  their  .own  position  for  them- 
selves, for  others,  and  especially  for  their  children,  and  so 
you  cannot  help  but  answer  such  questions  as :  why  you 
collect  millions  of  soldiers  and  join  them  yourselves,  in 
order  to  kill  and  mutilate  one  another ;  why  you  have 
wasted  enormous  human  forces,  which  are  expressed  in 
billions,  in  building  up  useless  and  harmful  cities ;  why 
you  establish  your  toy  courts  and  send  men  whom  you 
consider  criminal  from  France  to  Cayenne,  from  Russia  to 
Siberia,  from  England  to  Australia,  when  you  yourselves 
know  that  this  is  senseless ;  why  you  abandon  your 
favourite  farming  occupation,  and  labour  in  factories  and 
plants  which  you  dislike ;  why  you  educate  your  children 
that  they  may  continue  this  life  of  which  you  do  not 
approve ;  why  you  do  all  this.     If  all  these  were  pleas- 


192  MY   RELIGION 

ant  occupations,  of  which  you  were  fond,  you  would  still 
have  to  say  why  you  were  doing  this  or  that ;  but  when 
these  are  terribly  difficult  occupations,  and  you  do  them 
with  an  effort  and  with  murmuring,  you  cannot  help 
wondering  why  you  are  doing  it  all.  We  either  must 
stop  doing  all  this,  or  we  must  answer  why  we  are  doing 
it.  Men  have  never  lived  without  an  answer  to  this 
question,  and  they  cannot  live  without  it.  And  men 
have  always  had  an  answer  for  it. 

A  Jew  lived  as  he  did,  that  is,  he  waged  war,  put 
people  to  death,  built  a  temple,  arranged  all  his  life  this 
way  or  that,  because  all  this  was  prescribed  in  the  law, 
which,  in  his  conviction,  came  down  from  God  himself. 
The  same  is  true  of  a  Hindoo,  a  Chinaman  ;  the  same 
was  the  case  with  a  Eoman,  and  is  now  the  case  with  a 
Mohammedan ;  the  same  was  true  of  a  Christian  a  hun- 
dred vears  ago  ;  the  same  is  true  now  of  the  ignorant  mass 
of  Christians.  To  these  questions  an  ignorant  Christian 
now  answers  as  follows :  The  military,  the  wars,  the 
courts,  the  executions,  all  that  exists  according  to  God's 
law  as  transmitted  to  us  by  the  church.  The  present 
world  is  a  fallen  world.  All  the  evil  that  exists  exists 
by  the  will  of  God,  as  a  punishment  for  the  sins  of  the 
world,  and  so  we  cannot  mend  this  evil.  All  we  can  do 
is  to  save  our  souls  by  faith,  sacraments,  prayers,  and  sub- 
mission to  the  will  of  God  as  transmitted  to  us  through 
the  church.  But  the  church  teaches  us  that  every  Chris- 
tian must  without  opposition  obey  the  kings,  the  anointed 
of  the  Lord,  and  the  chiefs  appointed  by  them,  forcibly 
defend  his  own  property  and  that  of  others,  wage  war, 
put  to  death,  and  suffer  punishments  by  the  will  of  the 
powers  which  are  appointed  by  God. 

No  matter  whether  these  explanations  are  good  or  bad, 
—  to  a  believing  Christian,  as  to  a  Jew,  a  Buddhist,  a 
Mohammedan,  they  explained  all  the  peculiarities  of  life, 
and  a  man  did  not  renounce  reason  when  he  lived  accord- 


MY    RELIGION  193 

ing  to  the  law  which  he  took  to  be  divine.  But  now  the 
time  has  come  when  only  the  most  ignorant  believe  in 
these  things,  and  the  number  of  such  men  is  diminishing 
with  every  day  and  hour.  There  is  no  possibility  of 
arresting  this  motion.  All  men  irrepressibly  follow  those 
who  are  walking  in  front,  and  all  will  arrive  where  the 
men  of  the  front  are  standing.  Now  the  men  of  the  front 
are  standing  over  an  abyss :  they  are  in  a  terrible  con- 
dition, —  they  create  their  own  lives  and  prepare  life  for 
all  those  who  follow  them,  and  find  themselves  in  com- 
plete ignorance  of  why  they  are  doing  that  which  they 
are  doing.  Not  one  cultured  leader  is  now  able  to  give 
an  answer  to  the  direct  question :  "  Why  do  you  live  the 
life  you  live  ?  Why  are  you  doing  all  you  do  ? "  I  have 
tried  to  ask  hundreds  of  people,  and  never  have  received 
any  direct  answer.  Instead  of  a  direct  answer  to  a  per- 
sonal question  as  to  why  one  lives  and  does  so  and  so,  I 
have  always  received  an  answer,  not  to  my  question,  but 
to  one  which  I  had  not  put. 

A  believing  Catholic,  Protestant,  or  Orthodox,  when 
asked  why  he  lives  as  he  does,  that  is,  contrary  to  that 
teaching  of  Christ  which  he  professes,  will  always  avoid 
a  direct  answer  and  will  begin  to  talk  of  the  lamentable 
condition  of  unbelief  of  our  present  generation,  of  bad  men 
who  cause  this  unbelief,  and  of  the  significance  and  the 
future  of  the  true  church.  But  he  does  not  answer  why 
he  himself  does  not  do  what  his  faith  commands  him  to 
do.  Instead  of  an  answer  about  himself  he  talks  of 
the  general  condition  of  humanity  and  of  the  church,  as 
though  his  own  Kfe  had  no  meaning  for  him  and  he  were 
occupied  only  with  the  salvation  of  the  whole  of  human- 
ity and  with  what  he  calls  the  church. 

A  philosopher,  no  matter  to  what  school  he  may  belong, 
—  whether  he  be  an  idealist,  spiritualist,  pessimist,  posi- 
tivist,  —  when  asked  why  he  lives  as  he  does,  that  is,  out 
of  harmony  with  his  philosophical  teaching,  will,  instead  of 


194  MY   RELIGION 

answering  this  question,  talk  of  the  progress  of  humanity, 
of  that  historic  law  of  this  progress  which  he  has  found 
and  by  which  humanity  strives  after  the  good.  But  he 
will  never  give  a  direct  answer  to  the  question  why 
he  himself  does  not  do  in  his  hfe  what  he  considers 
rational.  A  philosopher,  like  a  believer,  does  not  seem 
to  be  occupied  with  his  own  personal  life,  but  only  with 
the  observation  of  the  universal  laws  of  humanity. 

The  average  man,  the  vast  majority  of  half-lDelieving, 
half-unbelieving  cultured  men,  of  those  who  always,  with- 
out exception,  complain  of  their  life  and  of  the  whole 
structure  of  our  life,  and  foresee  the  ruin  of  everything, 
when  asked  why  he  lives  this  life  which  he  condemns, 
and  does  nothing  to  improve  it,  will,  instead  of  giving  a 
direct  answer,  always  begin  to  talk,  not  of  himself,  but 
of  some  general  topic,  —  of  justice,  of  commerce,  of  the 
state,  of  civilization.  If  he  is  a  policeman  or  a  prosecut- 
ing attorney,  he  will  say,  "  How  will  the  affairs  of  the 
government  proceed,  if,  to  improve  my  life,  I  shall  stop 
taking  part  in  it  ?  "  "  And  how  about  commerce  ?  "  he 
will  say  if  he  is  a  business  man.  "  How  about  civiliza- 
tion, if  I  shall  not  take  part  in  it,  in  order  to  improve  my 
life  ? "  He  will  always  say  so,  as  though  the  problem  of 
his  life  did  not  consist  in  doing  that  good  toward  which 
he  always  strives,  but  in  serving  his  country,  or  commerce, 
or  civiHzation.  The  average  man  answers  precisely  like 
the  believer  or  philosopher.  In  place  of  a  personal  ques- 
tion he  puts  a  general  one,  and  all  three  put  it  because 
they  have  no  answer  whatever  to  the  personal  question 
of  life,  because  they  have  absolutely  no  real  teaching 
about  life,  and  they  feel  ashamed. 

He  feels  ashamed,  because  he  feels  himself  in  the 
humiliating  position  of  a  man  who  has  no  teaching  about 
life,  whereas  no  man  has  ever  lived,  or  ever  can  live, 
without  it.  Only  in  our  Christian  world  the  teaching 
about  life  and  the  explanations  why  life  should  be  such 


MY   RELIGION  195 

and  no  other,  that  is,  rehgion,  have  given  place  to  the 
mere  explanation  as  to  why  life  ought  to  be  such  as  it 
has  been  before,  and  religion  has  come  to  mean  something 
which  no  one  wants ;  but  hfe  itself  has  become  independ- 
ent of  every  teaching,  that  is,  without  any  definition. 

More  than  this :  as  is  always  the  case,  science  has  ac- 
knowledged precisely  this  accidental,  monstrous  condition 
of  our  society  to  be  the  law  of  all  humanity.  Savants, 
Tiele,  Spencer,  and  others,  most  seriously  treat  of  rehgion, 
understanding  by  it  the  metaphysical  doctrines  of  the 
beginning  of  everything,  without  suspecting  that  they  are 
not  speaking  of  religion  as  a  whole,  but  only  of  parts  of  it. 

This  has  led  to  the  remarkable  phenomenon  that  in  our 
day  we  see  clever  and  learned  men  who  are  most  naively 
convinced  that  they  are  free  from  all  religion,  merely 
because  they  do  not  acknowledge  the  metaphysical  expla- 
nations of  the  beginning  of  everything,  which  at  one  time 
served  somebody  as  an  explanation  of  hfe.  It  does  not 
occur  to  them  that  they  must  hve  somehow  and  that  they 
do  live  somehow,  and  that  that,  on  the  basis  of  which  they 
live  one  way,  and  not  another,  is  religion.  These  people 
are  convinced  that  they  have  very  exalted  convictions  and 
no  rehgion.  But,  no  matter  what  their  conversations  may 
be,  they  have  faith,  so  long  as  they  do  some  rational  acts, 
because  all  rational  acts  are  determined  by  faith.  Now 
the  acts  of  these  men  are  determined  by  the  faith  that 
they  must  always  do  only  what  they  are  commanded  to  do. 
The  religion  of  men  who  do  not  acknowledge  religion  is 
a  religion  of  submission  to  everything  which  the  vast  ma- 
jority does,  that  is,  more  briefly,  the  rehgion  of  obedience 
to  the  existing  power.  . 

It  is  possible  to  hve  according  to  the  teaching  of  the 
world,  that  is,  an  animal  hfe,  without  acknowledging  any- 
thing higher  and  more  obhgatory  than  the  prescriptions  of 
the  existing  power.  But  he  who  lives  in  this  manner  can- 
not affirm  that  he  hves  rationally.     Before  affirming  that 


196  MY    RELIGION 

we  live  ratioually  we  must  answer  the  question  as  to  what 
teaching  about  Hfe  we  consider  rational.  We  unfortunate 
people  not  only  have  no  such  teaching,  but  we  have  even 
lost  the  consciousness  of  the  necessity  of  any  rational 
teaching  of  life. 

Ask  the  people  of  our  time,  both  believers  and  unbe- 
lievers, what  teaching  they  follow  in  life.  They  will 
have  to  confess  that  they  follow  the  one  teaching,  the  laws 
which  are  written  by  the  officials  of  the  Second  Division 
or  the  legislative  assemblies,  and  which  are  put  in  execu- 
tion by  the  police.  Tliis  is  the  only  teaching  which  our 
European  people  acknowledge.  They  know  that  this 
teaching  is  not  from  heaven,  not  from  the  prophets,  and 
not  from  wise  men ;  they  constantly  condemn  the 
decrees  of  these  officials  or  legislative  assemblies,  but 
none  the  less  acknowledge  this  teaching  and  obey  its 
executors,  the  police,  and  obey  them  without  opposition 
in  its  most  terrible  demands.  The  officials  or  assemblies 
write  a  law  that  every  young  man  must  be  prepared  to 
insult,  suffer  death,  and  kill  others,  and  all  fathers  and 
mothers  who  have  reared  sons  hasten  to  obey  such  a  law, 
which  was  written  but  yesterday  by  a  venal  official  and 
which  to-morrow  may  be  abolished. 

The  conception  of  a  law  as  unquestionably  rational 
and  from  the  inner  consciousness  obligatory  for  all  is  to 
such  a  degree  lost  in  our  society,  that  the  existence  of  a 
law,  as  held  by  the  Jewish  nation,  which  determines  all 
their  life,  of  a  law  which  is  obligatory,  not  ^om  compul- 
sion, but  from  the  inner  consciousness  of  each,  is  con- 
sidered an  exclusive  property  of  the  Jewish  nation  alone. 
The  fact  that  the  Jews  obeyed  only  what  in  the  depth  of 
their  souls  they  regarded  as  an  indisputable  truth  which 
was  received  directly  from  God,  that  is,  what  was  in  con- 
formity with  their  conscience,  is  considered  a  peculiarity 
of  the  Jews.  But  they  consider  that  condition  normal 
and  proper  for  an  educated  man,  which  demands  his  obe- 


MY    RELIGION  197 

dience  to  what  is  admittedly  written  by  despised  men 
and  is  carried  into  execution  by  a  policeman  with  a  pistol, 
although  each  of  them,  or  at  least  the  majority  of  these 
men,  considers  it  irregular,  that  is,  contrary  to  his  con- 
science. 

I  have  looked  in  vain  in  our  civihzed  world  for  some 
clearly  expressed  bases  of  life.  There  are  none.  There 
does  not  even  exist  the  consciousness  of  their  being  neces- 
sary. There  exists,  on  the  contrary,  a  strange  conviction 
that  they  are  useless ;  that  religion  is  nothing  but  a  series 
of  words  about  the  future  life,  about  God,  and  a  series  of 
rites,  which,  in  the  opinion  of  some,  are  very  useful  for 
the  salvation  of  the  soul  and,  in  the  opinion  of  others, 
quite  useless ;  that  life  goes  on  of  itself,  and  that  no 
bases  and  no  rules  are  wanted  for  it :  all  that  is  neces- 
sary is  to  do  what  one  is  commanded  to  do.  Of  that 
which  forms  the  essence  of  faith,  that  is,  the  teaching  of 
life  and  the  explanation  of  its  meaning,  —  the  first  is 
considered  of  no  importance  and  not  belonging  to  faith, 
and  the  second,  that  is,  the  explanation  of  a  former  life, 
or  the  discussions  and  divinations  about  the  historical 
progress  of  life,  is  considered  most  important  and  serious. 
In  everything  which  forms  man's  life,  —  how  to  live, 
whether  one  should  go  out  to  kill  people,  or  not,  whether 
to  go  and  judge  people,  or  not,  whether  to  educate  cliil- 
dren  in  one  way  rather  than  in  another,  —  men  of  our 
world  unflinchingly  entrust  themselves  to  other  men,  who, 
like  themselves,  do  not  know  why  they  live  or  why  they 
cause  others  to  live  thus  and  not  thus. 

And  such  a  life  men  regard  as  rational,  and  they  are 
not  ashamed  of  it ! 

The  discord  between  the  explanation  of  faith,  which  is 
called  religion,  and  faith  itself,  which  is  called  the  social, 
political  life,  has  now  reached  its  highest  degree,  and  the 
whole  civilized  majority  of  men  are  left  for  life  with 
nothing  but  the  faith  in  the  policeman  and  the  gendarme. 


198  MY   RELIGION 

This  state  would  be  terrible,  if  it  were  absolutely  such. 
But,  fortunately,  there  are  men  in  our  day,  the  best  men 
of  our  day,  who  are  not  satisfied  with  such  a  faith,  and 
who  have  their  own  faith  as  to  how  men  ought  to  live. 

These  people  are  considered  very  harmful,  dangerous, 
and,  above  all,  unbeKeving,  and  yet  these  are  the  only 
behevers  of  our  time,  not  merely  believers  in  general,  but 
more  particularly  believers  in  Christ's  teaching,  if  not  in 
the  whole  teaching,  at  least  in  a  small  part  of  it. 

These  men  frequently  do  not  know  Christ's  teaching  at 
all  and  do  not  understand  it,  and  frequently,  Uke  their 
enemies,  do  not  accept  the  chief  basis  of  Christ's  faith, 
the  non-resistance  to  evil,  and  often  even  hate  Christ ; 
but  their  whole  faith  as  to  what  life  ought  to  be  is  based 
on  Christ's  teaching.  No  matter  how  these  men  may  be 
persecuted,  no  matter  how  much  they  may  be  maligned, 
they  are  the  only  men  who  do  not  submit  without  a  mur- 
mur to  everything  that  is  demanded  of  them,  and  so  they 
are  the  only  men  of  our  time  who  do  not  live  an  animal, 
but  a  rational  life,  —  the  only  true  believers. 

The  thread  which  unites  the  world  with  the  church 
that  gave  a  meaning  to  the  world  became  weaker  and 
weaker  in  proportion  as  the  contents,  the  sap  of  life,  infil- 
trated more  and  more  into  the  world.  Now  that  the  sap 
is  all  infiltrated,  the  connecting  thread  has  become  a  mere 
impediment. 

It  is  the  mysterious  process  of  birth,  and  it  takes  place 
in  our  full  sight.  At  one  and  the  same  time  the  last  tie 
with  the  church  is  broken,  and  the  independent  process 
of  life  is  established. 

The  teaching  of  the  church,  with  its  dogmas,  its  coun- 
cils, its  hierarchy,  is  indisputably  connected  with  Christ's 
teaching.  This  connection  is  as  manifest  as  the  connec- 
tion of  the  new-born  fa'tus  with  the  mother's  womb. 
But,  as  the  umbilical  cord  and  the  placenta  after  bii'th 


MY    RELIGION  199 

become  useless  pieces  of  flesh,  which,  out  of  respect  for 
what  was  contained  in  them,  must  carefully  be  buried  in 
the  ground,  so  the  church  has  become  a  useless,  obsolete 
organ,  which,  out  of  respect  for  what  it  once  was,  ought 
to  be  put  out  of  sight.  The  moment  respiration  and  the 
circulation  of  the  blood  are  established,  the  connection, 
which  before  was  a  source  of  nutrition,  has  become  an 
impediment,  and  senseless  are  the  efforts  to  retain  this 
connection  and  to  compel  the  child  that  has  come 
out  into  the  world  to  receive  its  nutriment  through 
the  umbilical  cord,  and  not  through  the  mouth  and 
lungs. 

But  the  liberation  of  the  babe  from  the  mother's  womb 
is  not  yet  life.  The  babe's  life  depends  on  the  establish- 
ment of  a  new  connection  of  nutrition  with  the  mother. 
The  same  thing  must  happen  w^th  our  Christian  world. 
Christ's  teaching  has  carried  our  world  and  has  given  it 
birth.  The  church  —  one  of  the  organs  of  Christ's  teach- 
ing—  has  done  its  work,  and  is  now  useless,  and  an 
impediment.  The  world  cannot  be  guided  by  the  church, 
but  the  liberation  of  the  world  from  the  church  is  not 
yet  hfe.  Its  life  will  ensue  when  it  shall  recognize  its 
impotence  and  shall  feel  the  necessity  for  a  new  way  of 
nutrition.  It  is  this  that  must  take  place  in  our  Chris- 
tian world ;  it  has  to  start  crying  from  the  consciousness 
of  its  helplessness,  and  only  the  consciousness  of  its  help- 
lessness, the  consciousness  of  the  impossibility  of  the 
former  nutrition  and  of  the  impossibihty  of  any  other 
nutrition  than  the  mother's  milk,  will  bring  it  to  the 
mother's  breast,  which  is  swollen  with  milk. 

With  our  externally  so  self-confident,  bold,  determined, 
and  in  the  depth  of  its  consciousness  so  frightened  and 
confused,  European  world  there  is  taking  place  the  same 
that  happens  with  a  new-born  babe :  it  tosses  about, 
stretches,  cries,  pushes,  as  though  it  were  angry,  and 
cannot  understand  what  it  should  do.     It  feels  that  the 


200  MY    RELIGION 

source  of  its  former  nutrition  has  gone  dry,  but  does  not 
yet  know  where  to  look  for  a  new  one. 

A  newly  born  lamb  rolls  its  eyes  and  turns  its  ears,  and 
shakes  its  tail,  and  jumps  about,  and  kicks.  From  its 
determined  movements  we  judge  that  it  knows  every- 
thing, but  the  poor  little  animal  knows  nothing.  All  this 
determination  and  energy  is  the  fruit  of  the  mother's  fluids, 
the  transmission  of  which  has  just  come  lo  an  end  and 
can  no  longer  be  renewed.  It  is  in.  a  blessed  and  at  the 
same  time  desperate  state.  It  is  full  of  freshness  and 
vigour ;  but  it  will  perish  if  it  does  not  take  hold  of  its 
mother's  teats. 

The  same  thing  is  happening  in  our  European  world. 
See  what  complicated,  what  apparently  rational,  what  ener- 
getic life  is  boiling  in  the  European  world.  It  is  as  though 
all  men  knew  everything  they  do  and  why  they  do  it  all. 
See  with  what  determination,  with  what  youthful  strength, 
the  men  of  our  world  do  all  which  they  do.  The  arts,  the 
sciences,  the  industry,  the  social  and  the  political  ac- 
tivities, —  everything  is  full  of  life.  But  all  this  is  alive 
only  because  but  lately  it  fed  on  the  mother's  fluids  through 
the  umbihcal  cord.  There  was  the  church  which  trans- 
mitted the  rational  teaching  of  Christ  to  the  life  of  the 
world.  Every  phenomenon  of  the  world  was  fed  and 
strengthened  by  it.  But  the  church  has  done  its  work, 
and  has  dried  up.  All  the  organs  of  the  world  are  alive ; 
the  source  of  its  former  nutrition  is  stopped,  and  they  have 
not  yet  found  a  new  one  ;  they  are  looking  for  it  every- 
where except  with  the  mother,  from  whom  they  have  just 
been  liberated.  Like  a  lamb,  they  are  still  making  use  of 
their  former  nutriment,  but  they  have  not  yet  reached  a 
point  where  they  can  understand  that  this  food  is  in  the 
mother  alone,  but  that  it  can  be  transmitted  to  them  only 
in  a  different  way  from  what  it  was  before. 

The  work  which  the  world  has  now  to  do  is  to  under- 
stand that  the  process  of  the  former  unconscious  nutrition 


MY    EELIGION  201 

has  been  outlived  and  that  a  new,  conscious  process  of 
nutrition  is  wanted. 

This  new  process  consists  in  consciously  accepting  those 
truths  of  the  Christian  teaching  which  fornieiiy  were  in- 
filtrated in  humanity  through  the  organ  of  the  church  and 
by  which  even  now  humanity  lives.  Men  must  again 
raise  up  the  light  by  which  they  lived,  but  which  has  been 
concealed  from  them,  and  place  it  high  before  themselves 
and  before  others,  and  consciously  live  by  this  light. 

Christ's  teaching,  as  a  religion  which  defines  life  and 
gives  an  explanation  of  the  life  of  men,  stands  now  as  it 
stood  before  men  eighteen  hundred  years  ago.  But  for- 
merly the  world  possessed  the  explanations  of  the  church, 
which,  while  shielding  the  teaching  from  it,  none  the  less 
seemed  sufficient  for  its  old  life,  whereas  now  the  time  has 
come  when  the  church  has  revived,  and  the  world  has  no 
explanations  for  its  new  life  and  cannot  help  but  feel  its 
helplessness,  and  so  cannot  help  but  receive  Christ's 
teaching. 

Christ  teaches  above  everything  else  that  men  must  be- 
lieve in  the  light,  while  the  light  is  in  them.  Christ  teaches 
men  to  place  this  light  of  reason  higher  than  anything  else 
and  to  live  in  accordance  with  it,  without  doing  what  they 
themselves  regard  as  senseless.  If  you  consider  it  irra- 
tional to  go  out  to  kill  the  Turks  or  the  Germans,  —  do 
not  go ;  if  you  consider  it  irrational  forcibly  to  deprive 
poor  people  of  the  result  of  their  labour,  in  order  to  don  a 
silk  hat,  or  lace  yourself  in  a  corset,  or  fix  up  a  drawing- 
room,  which  only  embarrasses  you,  —  do  not  do  it ;  if  you 
consider  it  irrational  to  imprison  those  who  are  corrupted 
by  idleness  and  harmful  company,  that  is,  to  put  them 
where  the  company  is  most  harmful  and  the  idleness 
most  complete,  —  do  not  do  it ;  if  you  consider  it  irra- 
tional to  live  in  the  infected  air  of  the  cities,  when  it  is 
possible  for  you  to  live  in  the  open,  do  not  do  it ;  if  you  con- 
sider it  irrational  to  teach  the  children  first  of  all  and  more 


202  MY    RELIGION 

than  anything  else  the  grammars  of  the  dead  languages, 
do  not  do  it.  Do  not  do  what  our  European  world  is  doing 
now  :  living  and  not  considering  life  rational,  working  and 
not  considering  the  works  rational,  not  believing  in  one's 
own  reason,  not  living  in  accordance  with  it. 

Christ's  teaching  is  the  light.  The  light  shineth,  and 
the  darkness  comprehendeth  it  not.  It  is  impossible  not 
to  receive  the  hght  when  it  shines.  It  is  impossible  to 
dispute  with  it,  impossible  not  to  agree  with  it.  It  is 
impossible  not  to  agree  with  Christ's  teaching,  because  it 
comprehends  all  errors,  in  which  men  live,  and  does  not 
come  in  contact  with  them,  but  penetrates  them  all  like 
the  ether,  of  which  the  physicists  speak.  Christ's  teaching 
is  equally  inevitable  for  every  man  of  our  world,  no  matter 
what  his  position  may  be.  Christ's  teaching  cannot  fail 
to  be  accepted  by  men,  not  because  it  is  impossible  to  deny 
that  metaphysical  explanation  which  it  gives  (everything 
can  be  denied),  but  because  it  alone  gives  those  rules  of  life 
without  which  humanity  has  not  lived  and  cannot  live, 
and  not  one  man  has  lived  or  can  live,  if  he  wants  to  live 
like  a  man,  that  is,  a  rational  hfe. 

The  force  of  Christ's  teaching  is  not  in  its  explanation 
of  the  meaning  of  life,  but  in  what  results  from  it,  —  in 
the  teaching  about  life.  Christ's  metaphysical  teaching 
is  not  new.  It  is  still  the  same  teaching  of  humanity 
which  is  written  in  the  hearts  of  men,  and  which  all  the 
true  sages  of  the  world  have  professed.  But  the  force  of 
Christ's  teaching  is  in  the  application  of  this  metaphysical 
teaching  to  life. 

The  metaphysical  foundation  of  the  ancient  teaching  of 
the  Jews  and  of  Christ  is  one  and  the  same,  —  the  love 
of  God  and  of  our  neighbour.  But,  for  the  application  of 
this  teaching  to  life  according  to  Moses,  as  the  Jews  under- 
stood it,  there  was  demanded  the  fulfilment  of  613  com- 
mandments, which  often  are  senseless  and  cruel,  and  all 
of  which  are   based  on  the  authority  of  the  Scripture. 


MY    RELIGION  203 

Christ's  teaching  about  life,  which  results  from  the  same 
metaphysical  basis,  is  expressed  in  five  commandments, 
which  are  rational  and  good,  and  bear  in  themselves  their 
meaning  and  their  justification,  and  comprehend  the  whole 
life  of  men. 

Christ's  teaching  cannot  help  but  be  accepted  by  all 
believing  Jews,  Buddhists,  Mohammedans,  and  others, 
who  may  have  any  doubts  as  to  the  truth  of  their  own 
law ;  still  less  can  it  be  rejected  by  those  people  of  our 
Christian  world  who  now  hav.e  no  moral  law  whatever. 

Christ's  teaching  has  no  quarrel  with  the  men  of  our 
world  about  their  conception  of  the  world  ;  it  agrees  with 
them  in  advance  and,  including  their  conception  in  itself, 
gives  them  what  they  lack,  what  they  need,  and  what  they 
are  looking  for :  it  gives  them  the  path  of  life,  and  at  that 
not  a  new  one,  but  one  they  have  long  known  and  which 
is  familiar  to  them. 

You  are  a  believing  Christian  of  some  sect  or  creed. 
You  believe  in  the  creation  of  the  world,  in  the  Trinity, 
in  the  fall  and  redemption  of  man,  in  the  sacraments,  in 
prayers,  and  in  the  church.  Christ's  teaching  not  only 
does  not  quarrel  with  you,  but  even  fully  agrees  with 
your  world  conception ;  it  only  gives  you  what  you 
lack.  While  preserving  your  present  faith,  you  feel 
that  the  life  of  the  world  and  your  own  life  are  full  of 
evil,  and  you  do  not  know  how  to  avoid  it.  Christ's 
teaching  (which  is  obligatory  for  you,  because  it  is  the 
teaching  of  your  God)  gives  you  simple,  practicable  rules 
of  life,  which  wiU  free  you  and  other  people  from  the  evil 
which  torments  you.  Believe  in  the  resurrection,  in  Par- 
adise, in  hell,  in  the  Pope,  in  the  church,  in  the  sacra- 
ments, in  redemption  ;  pray,  as  your  faith  demands  of  you, 
go  to  communion,  sing  psalms,  —  all  that  does  not  hinder 
you  from  fulfilling  what  was  revealed  by  Christ  for  your 
good  :  be  not  angry,  commit  no  debauch,  do  not  swear,  do 
not  defend  yourself  by  force,  wage  no  war. 


204  MY    RELIGION 

It  may  be  that  you  will  not  fulfil  some  oue  of  these 
rules,  and  will  be  carried  away,  and  you  will  break  one  oi' 
these,  even  as  you  now,  in  moments  of  infatuation,  break 
the  rules  of  your  faith,  the  rules  of  civil  law,  or  the  laws 
of  decency.  Even  so  you  will,  perhaps,  in  moments  of 
infatuation  depart  from  Christ's  rules  ;  but  in  calm  min- 
utes you  must  not  do  what  you  are  doing  now,  —  do  not 
arrange  life  in  such  a  way  that  it  is  hard  not  to  be 
angry,  not  to  commit  debauch,  not  to  swear,  not  to  defend 
yourself,  not  to  wage  war,  but  in  such  a  way  that  it  will 
be  hard  to  do  this.  You  cannot  help  but  acknowledge 
this,  because  God  has  ordered  you  to  do  so. 

You  are  an  unbelieving  philosopher  of  some  school  or 
other.  You  say  that  everything  in  the  world  takes  place 
according  to  a  law  which  you  have  discovered.  Christ's 
teaching  does  not  quarrel  with  you  and  recognizes  in  full 
the  law  which  you  have  discovered.  But  despite  this  law 
of  yours,  according  to  which  the  good  which  you  wish 
and  have  prepared  for  humanity  will  come  to  pass  in  a 
thousand  years,  there  is  also  your  personal  life,  which  you 
can  live  either  in  conformity  with  reason,  or  contrary  to 
it ;  but  for  your  personal  hfe  you  now  have  no  rules  but 
those  which  are  written  by  men  you  do  not  respect  and 
which  are  executed  by  policemen.  Christ's  teaching  gives 
you  rules  which  certainly  agree  with  your  law,  because 
your  law  of  altruism  or  of  the  one  will  is  notliing  but 
another  paraphrase  of  the  same  teaching  of  Christ. 

You  are  an  average  man,  half  believing,  half  not  be- 
lieving, who  have  no  time  to  reflect  on  the  meaning  of 
human  life,  and  you  have  no  definite  world  conception  : 
you  do  everything  which  everybody  else  does,  Christ's 
teaching  does  not  quarrel  with  you.  It  says :  very  well, 
you  are  not  able  to  reflect,  or  to  believe  in  the  truth  of  the 
teaching  which  is  imparted  to  you :  it  is  easier  for  you  to 
do  precisely  as  everybody  else  does ;  but,  no  matter  how 
modest  you  may  be,  you  none  the  less  feel  in  yourself  that 


MY    KELIGION  205 

inward  judge  who  at  times  approves  of  your  deeds,  which 
are  in  harmony  with  everybody,  and  at  times  does  not 
approve  of  them.  No  matter  how  modest  your  lot  may  be, 
you  have  to  reflect,  and  to  ask  yourself  whether  you  should 
act  like  everybody  else,  or  in  your  own  way.  Precisely 
in  such  cases,  that  is,  when  the  necessity  arises  for  you 
to  solve  such  a  question,  Christ's  rules  will  stand  out 
before  you  in  all  their  force.  These  rules  will  certainly 
give  you  an  answer  to  your  question,  because  they  com- 
prehend your  whole  life,  and  they  will  answer  you  in 
conformity  with  your  reason  and  your  conscience.  If 
you  are  nearer  to  faith  than  to  unbelief,  you,  by  acting 
in  this  manner,  will  act  according  to  God's  will ;  if  you 
are  nearer  to  free  thought,  you,  by  acting  in  this  manner, 
act  according  to  the  most  sensible  rules  that  exist  in  the 
world,  of  which  you  will  convince  yourself,  because  Christ's 
rules  bear  in  themselves  their  meaning  and  their  justifica- 
tion. 

Christ  said  (John  xii.  31),  Now  is  the  judgment  of  this 
world :  now  shall  the  prince  of  this  world  be  cast  out. 

Again  he  said  (John  xvi.  33),  These  things  I  have 
spoken  unto  you,  that  in  me  ye  might  have  peace.  In 
the  world  ye  shall  have  tribulation  :  but  be  of  good  cheer ; 
I  have  overcome  the  world. 

Indeed,  the  world,  that  is,  the  evil  of  the  world,  is 
vanquished. 

If  there  still  exists  a  world  of  evil,  it  exists  only  as 
something  dead,  it  lives  only  by  inertia :  it  no  longer  has 
the  foundations  of  life.  It  does  not  exist  for  him  who 
believes  in  Christ's  commandments.  It  is  vanquished  in 
the  rational  consciousness  of  the  son  of  man.  A  train 
at  full  speed,  though  with  steam  shut  off,  will  continue 
running  forward  in  a  straight  direction,  but  all  the  rational 
work  has  for  some  time  been  going  on  for  the  opposite 
direction. 

For  whatsoever  is  born  of  God  overcometh  the  world : 


206  Mr   RELIGION 

and  this  is  the  victory  that  overcometh  the  world,  even 
our  faith  (1  John  v.  4). 

The  faith  which  is  overcoming  the  world  is  the  faith  in 
Christ's  teaching. 


XII. 

I  BELIEVE  in  Christ's  teaching,  and  my  faith  consists  in 
the  following : 

I  believe  that  my  good  is  possible  on  earth  only  when 
all  people  will  fulfil  Christ's  teaching. 

I  believe  that  the  fulfilment  of  this  teaching  is  possible, 
easy,  and  joyful. 

I  believe  that  even  so  long  as  the  teaching  is  not  being 
fulfilled,  and  I  am  one  among  all  the  unbelievers,  I  still 
can  do  nothing  for  the  salvation  of  my  life  from  inevital)le 
perdition  but  fulfil  this  teaching,  even  as  he  can  do  nothing 
else  who  in  a  burning  house  has  found  a  door  of  salva- 
tion. 

I  believe  that  ray  Jifvj  according  to  the  teaching  of  the 
world  has  been  agonizing,  and  that  only  the  life  according 
to  Christ's  teaching  gives  me  the  good  which  the  Father 
of  life  has  intended  for  me. 

I  believe  that  this  teaching  gives  the  good  to  the  whole 
of  humanity,  saves  me  from  inevitable  perdition,  and  gives 
me  here  the  greatest  good,  and  so  I  cannot  help  but 
fulfil  it. 

The  law  was  given  by  Moses,  but  the  good  and  truth 
through  Jesus  Christ  (John  i.  17).  Christ's  teaching  is 
the  good  and  truth.  Formerly,  when  I  did  not  know  the 
truth,  I  did  not  know  even  the  good.  Taking  the  evil 
to  be  the  good,  I  fell  into  this  evil  and  doubted  the  legal- 
ity of  my  striving  after  the  good ;  but  now  I  understand 
and  believe  that  the  good  after  which  I  strive  is  the  will 
of  the  Father  and  the  most  legitimate  essence  of  my  life. 

Christ  told  me.  Live  for  the  good,  but  do  not  believe 

207 


208  MY    RELIGION 

those  traps,  those  temptations  (aKuvBaXov),  which,  entic- 
ing you  by  the  semblance  of  the  good,  deprive  you  of  the 
good  and  inveigle  you  into  evil.  Your  good  is  your  union 
with  all  men,  the  evil  is  a  violation  of  the  union  with  the 
son  of  man.  Do  not  deprive  yourself  of  the  good  which 
is  given  you. 

Christ  has  shown  me  that  the  union  with  the  son  of 
man,  the  love  of  men  among  themselves,  is  not,  as  I  used 
to  tliiuk,  an  aim  toward  which  men  must  strive,  but  that 
this  union,  this  love  of  men  among  themselves,  is  their 
natural  condition,  the  one  in  which,  according  to  his 
words,  children  are  born,  and  the  one  in  which  all  men 
live  until  this  condition  is  impaired  by  deceit,  error,  and 
offences. 

But  Christ  has  not  only  shown  me  this :  he  has  clearly, 
without  the  possibiHty  of  an  error,  counted  out  to  me  in 
his  commandments  all  the  offences,  without  an  exception, 
which  have  deprived  me  of  this  natural  condition  of  unity, 
love,  and  the  good,  and  which  have  inveigled  me  into  evil. 
Christ's  commandments  give  me  a  means  for  saving  myself 
from  the  temptations  which  have  deprived  me  of  my  good, 
an  i  so  I  cannot  help  but  beheve  in  these  commandments. 

The  good  of  life  was  given  to  me,  and  I  myself  ruined 
it,  Christ  by  his  commandments  has  shown  me  those 
temptations  by  which  I  am  ruining  my  good,  and  so  I 
cannot  do  that  which  ruins  my  good.  In  this,  and  in 
this  alone,  does  my  faith  consist. 

Christ  has  shown  me  that  the  first  offence  which  ruins 
my  good  is  my  enmity  with  men,  my  auger  at  them.  I 
cannot  help  beheving  it,  and  so  can  no  longer  consciously 
be  inimical  toward  other  people;  I  can  no  longer,  as  1 
used  to  do,  be  glad  of  my  anger,  pride  myself  on  it,  fan 
and  justify  it  by  acknowledging  myself  to  be  important 
and  clever,  and  other  people  insignificant,  lost,  and  sense- 
less ;  I  can  no  longer,  at  the  first  suggestion  of  my  sub- 
mitting to  anger,  fail  to  acknowledge  myself  guilty  and 


MY    RELIGION  209 

try  to  make  peace  with  those  who  are  iuimical  toward 
me. 

But  this  is  not  euough.  If  now  I  know  that  my  anger 
is  an  unnatural,  harmful,  morbid  condition  for  me,  I  also 
know  what  offence  has  brought  me  to  it.  Tliis  offence 
consisted  in  tliis,  that  I  separated  myself  from  other  peo- 
ple, recognizing  but  a  few  of  them  as  my  equals,  and  all 
others  as  insignificant,  not  men  {paKo),  or  stupid  and 
uneducated  (senseless).  Now  I  see  that  this  separating 
myself  from  other  men  and  recognizing  others  as  "  raca  " 
and  senseless  has  been  the  chief  cause  of  my  enmity  with 
men.  As  I  recall  my  former  life,  1  now  see  that  I  never 
permitted  my  hostile  feeling  to  be  fanned  against  those 
men  whom  I  considered  above  myself,  and  that  I  never 
offended  them ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  slightest  dis- 
agreeable action  of  a  man  whom  I  considered  below  me 
provoked  my  anger  at  him  and  my  indignation,  and  the 
higher  I  cousidered  myself  above  such  a  man,  the  more 
easily  did  I  offend  him ;  at  times  a  mere  imagined  base- 
ness of  a  man's  position  provoked  my  desire  to  offend 
him.  Now  I  understand  that  only  he  will  stand  higher 
than  other  men  who  will  humble  himself  before  others, 
who  will  be  a  servant  of  all  men.  Now  I  understand  why 
that  which  is  high  before  men  is  an  abomination  before 
God,  and  why  it  is  woe  to  the  rich  and  the  glorified,  and 
why  the  poor  and  the  humble  are  blessed. 

Only  now  do  I  understand  it  and  believe  in  it,  and  my 
faith  has  changed  my  whole  valuation  of  what  is  good 
and  high,  bad  and  low  in  life.  Everything  wdiich  hereto- 
fore had  appeared  good  and  high  to  me,  —  honours,  glory, 
culture,  riches,  the  complexity  and  refinement  of  life,  of 
the  appointments,  the  food,  the  apparel,  the  external  ways, 
—  all  this  became  low  and  bad  for  me,  and  the  peasant 
existence,  the  ingloriousness,  poverty,  coarseness,  simplic- 
ity of  the  surroundings,  of  the  food,  the  apparel,  and 
ways,  —  all  this  became  good  and  high  for  me.     And  so, 


210  MY   RELIGION 

although  even  now,  when  I  know  this,  I  may  in  moments 
of  forgetfuhiess  abandon  myself  to  anger  and  offend  my 
brother,  I  can  no  longer  in  my  calm  mood  serve  this 
offence,  which,  raising  me  above  other  men,  deprived  me 
of  my  true  good,  —  of  union  and  love,  —  even  as  a  man 
cannot  lay  a  trap  for  himself,  if  he  fell  into  it  before  and 
came  very  near  perishing  through  it.  Now  I  can  no 
longer  cooperate  with  what  externally  raises  me  above 
other  men,  and  separates  me  from  them ;  I  cannot,  as 
I  used  to  do  before,  in  my  own  case,  nor  in  that  of  any 
other  person,  acknowledge  any  distinctions,  ranks,  and 
honours,  except  the  name  and  dignity  of  man ;  I  cannot 
seek  glory  and  praise ;  I  cannot  seek  any  knowledge 
which  would  separate  me  from  the  rest ;  I  cannot  help 
but  try  to  free  myself  from  my  wealth,  which  separates 
me  from  men ;  I  cannot  help  but  in  my  life,  in  its  cir- 
cumstance, in  food,  in  apparel,  in  external  ways,  look  for 
everything  which  unites  me  with  the  majority  of  men, 
and  does  not  separate  me  from  them. 

Christ  has  shown  me  that  another  offence  which  ruins 
my  good  is  the  lust  of  fornication,  that  is  the  lust  for 
another  woman  than  the  one  with  whom  I  came  together. 
I  cannot  help  but  believe  this,  and  so  I  cannot,  as  I  used 
to  do  before,  acknowledge  the  lust  of  fornication  as  a 
natural  and  exalted  quahty  of  man ;  I  cannot  justify  it 
to  myself  by  my  love  of  beauty,  by  infatuation,  or  by 
defects  in  my  wife;  even  at  the  first  suggestion  of  sub- 
mitting to  the  lust  of  fornication  I  cannot  help  but  ac- 
knowledge mvself  in  a  morbid  and  unnatural  condition, 
and  search  for  every  means  which  could  liberate  me  from 
this  evil. 

Now  that  I  know  that  the  lust  of  fornication  is  an  evil 
for  me,  I  know  also  the  offence  which  formerly  used  to 
lead  me  into  it,  and  so  I  can  no  longer  serve  it.  I  know 
now  that  the  chief  cause  of  the  offence  does  not  lie  in 
the  fact  that  men  cannot  abstain  from  fornication,  but 


MY    RELIGION  211 

in  the  fact  that  the  majority  of  men  and  of  women  have 
been  abandoned  by  those  with  whom  they  have  come 
together  at  first.  Now  I  know  that  every  abandonment 
of  a  man  or  a  woman  after  they  have  come  together  for 
the  first  time  is  that  very  divorce  which  is  forbidden  by 
Christ,  because  husbands  and  wives  who  are  abandoned 
by  their  mates  bring  aU  debauch  into  the  world. 

EecalHng  what  it  was  that  led  me  to  commit  fornica- 
tion, I  now  see  that,  besides  that  savage  education,  which 
caused  the  lust  of  fornication  to  be  fanned  in  me  physically 
and  mentally,  and  caused  me  to  justify  it  with  all  the 
cunning  of  reason,  the  chief  offence  which  caught  me  con- 
sisted in  my  abandoning  the  woman  with  whom  I  had 
come  together  for  the  first  time,  and  in  the  condition  of 
the  abandoned  women,  who  surrounded  me  on  all  sides. 
Now  I  see  that  the  chief  force  of  the  offence  was  not  in 
my  lust,  but  in  the  ungratified  state  of  my  lust  and  of  the 
lust  of  those  abandoned  women  who  surrounded  me  on 
all  sides.  Now  I  understand  Christ's  words.  In  the  be- 
ginning God  created  woman  and  man  so  that  the  two 
should  be  one,  and  therefore  man  cannot  and  must  not 
sever  what  God  has  united.  Now  I  understand  that  mo- 
nogamy is  a  natural  law  of  humanity,  which  cannot  be 
violated.  Now  I  fully  appreciate  the  words  about  this, 
that  he  who  is  divorced  from  his  wife,  that  is,  from  the 
woman  with  whom  he  came  together  for  the  first  time,  in 
order  to  take  up  another,  causes  her  to  commit  debauch, 
and  introduces  against  himself  a  new  evil  into  the  world. 

I  believe  in  this,  and  this  faith  changes  all  my  former 
valuation  of  what  is  good  and  high,  bad  and  low  in  life. 
What  formerly  used  to  appear  to  me  as  very  good,  —  the 
refined  and  elegant  life,  the  passionate  and  poetic  love, 
which  is  extolled  by  all  poets  and  artists,  —  all  this  ap- 
peared bad  and  disgusting  to  me.  On  the  contrary,  what 
appeared  to  me  as  good  was  this,  —  a  coarse,  scant  life  of 
labour,    which    moderates    lust;   what    appeared    to    me 


212  MY   RELIGION 

exalted  and  important  was  not  so  much  the  human  insti- 
tution of  marriage,  which  imposed  the  external  stamp  of 
legality  on  a  certain  union  of  a  man  and  a  woman,  as 
the  union  of  any  man  with  any  woman,  which,  hav- 
ing once  been  accomphshed,  can  no  longer  be  violated 
without  violating  the  will  of  God.  If  I  even  now, 
in  a  minute  of  forgetfulness,  can  fall  a  prey  to  the 
lust  of  fornication,  I,  knowing  the  offence  which  has 
led  me  into  this  evil,  can  no  longer  serve  it,  as  I  did 
before. 

I  cannot  wish  and  seek  that  physical  idleness  and  fat 
living  which  fanned  in  me  inordinate  lust ;  I  cannot  seek 
those  amusements  whicli  fanned  the  amatory  lust  in  me, 
such  as  novels,  verses,  music,  theatres,  balls,  which  for- 
merly appeared  to  me  not  only  harmless,  but  even  as 
amusements  of  a  very  high  order ;  I  cannot  abandon  my 
wife,  knowing  that  the  abandonment  of  her  is  the  first  trap 
for  me,  for  her,  and  for  others ;  I  cannot  contribute  to  the 
idle  and  fat  living  of  other  men,  and  cannot  take  part  in 
and  arrange  those  lustful  amusements  —  novels,  theatres, 
operas,  balls,  and  so  forth  —  which  serve  as  a  trap  for  me 
and  for  other  people ;  I  cannot  encourage  the  cehbate  life 
of  those  who  are  ripe  for  marriage ;  I  cannot  take  part 
in  the  separation  of  husband  and  wife ;  I  cannot  make 
any  distinctions  between  cohabitations  which  are  called 
marriages  and  those  which  are  not  called  so ;  I  cannot 
help  but  regard  as  holy  and  obligatory  that  marital  union 
in  which  a  man  happens  to  be. 

Christ  has  revealed  to  me  that  a  third  offence  which  is 
ruining  my  good  is  the  offence  of  swearing.  I  cannot  help 
but  believe  this,  and  so  I  can  no  longer,  as  I  used  to  do, 
promise  a  person  anything  under  oath,  and  I  can  no  longer, 
as  I  used  to  do,  justify  myself  in  my  oath  by  saying  that 
there  is  nothing  bad  in  it  for  people ;  that  all  men  do  so ; 
that  it  is  necessary  for  the  state ;  that  I  or  others  will 
fare   worse  if  we  decline   to  comply  with  this  demand. 


MY    RELIGION  213 

Now  I  know  that  this  is  an  evil  for  me  and  for  men,  and 
I  cannot  do  it. 

This  is  not  all ;  now  1  know  also  the  offence  which  in- 
veigled me  into  this  evil,  and  I  can  no  longer  serve  it.  I 
know  that  the  offence  consists  in  this,  that  the  deception  is 
sanctified  in  the  name  of  God.  Now  the  deception  con- 
sists in  this,  that  men  promise  in  advance  that  they  will 
obey  the  command  of  a  man  or  of  a  set  of  men,  though  a 
man  can  never  obey  any  one  but  God.  Now  I  know  that 
the  most  terrible  evil  of  the  world,  so  far  as  its  conse- 
quences are  concerned,  —  murder  in  wars,  incarcerations, 
capital  punishments,  tortures  of  men,  —  is  committed  only 
thanks  to  this  offence  in  the  name  of  which  the  responsi- 
bility is  taken  away  from  the  people  who  commit  the 
wrong.  As  I  now  recall  many  an  evil  which  used  to 
cause  my  condemnation  and  dislike  of  people,  I  now  see 
that  it  was  all  called  forth  by  an  oath,  by  the  recognition 
of  the  necessity  of  submitting  oneself  to  the  will  of  other 
people.  Now  I  understand  the  meaning  of  the  words. 
Everything  which  is  above  the  simple  affirmation  or 
denial,  above  "  yes  "  and  "  no,"  every  promise  given  in  ad- 
vance, is  an  evil. 

Understanding  this,  I  believe  that  the  oath  ruins  my 
good  and  the  good  of  other  men ;  and  my  faith  changes 
the  valuation  of  what  is  good  and  bad,  high  and  low. 
Everything  which  heretofore  has  seemed  good  and  high,  — 
the  obligation  of  loyalty  to  a  government,  which  is  con- 
firmed by  an  oath,  the  extortion  of  this  oath  from  men, 
and  all  acts  which  are  contrary  to  conscience  and  are  per- 
formed in  the  name  of  this  oath,  —  all  this  now  appears 
bad  and  low  to  me.  And  so  I  can  no  longer  recede  from 
Christ's  commandment,  which  forbids  swearing  ;  I  can  no 
longer  swear  to  another,  nor  cause  others  to  swear,  nor  in 
any  way  be  instrumental  in  this,  that  men  should  swear  or 
cause  others  to  swear,  and  should  consider  the  oath  impor- 
tant and  necessary,  or  even  not  harmful,  as  many  think. 


214  MY   RELIGION 

Christ  has  revealed  to  me  that  a  fourth  offence  which 
deprives  me  of  my  good  is  the  resistance  to  evil  by  offer- 
ing violence  to  other  people.  I  cannot  help  but  beheve 
that  this  is  an  evil  for  me  and  for  other  people,  and  so  I 
cannot  consciously  do  it,  and  I  cannot,  as  I  used  to  do 
before,  justify  this  evil  by  saying  that  it  is  necessary  for  my 
defence  and  for  the  defence  of  other  people,  for  the  defence 
of  my  property  and  for  that  of  other  people ;  at  the  first 
suggestion  that  I  am  offering  violence  I  can  no  longer 
help  renouncing  and  stopping  it. 

But  I  not  only  know  this,  I  now  know  also  the  offence 
which  has  brought  me  to  this  evil.  Now  I  know  that 
this  offence  consists  in  the  delusion  that  my  hfe  can  be 
made  secure  by  defending  myself  and  my  property  against 
other  people.  Now  I  know  that  a  great  part  of  mens' 
evil  is  due  to  this,  that,  instead  of  giving  their  labour  to 
others,  they  not  only  do  not  give  it,  but  even  deprive 
themselves  of  all  labour  and  forcibly  take  away  the  labour 
of  others.  As  I  now  recall  all  the  evil  which  I  did  to 
myself  and  to  others,  and  all  the  evil  which  others  did,  I 
see  that  a  great  part  of  the  evil  is  due  to  this,  that  we 
considered  it  possible  by  means  of  defence  to  secure  and 
improve  our  life.  Now  I  understand  also  these  words, 
Man  is  not  born  to  be  worked  for,  but  to  work  for  others, 
and  the  meaning  of  the  words.  The  workman  is  worthy  of 
his  meat.  Now  I  believe  that  my  good  and  the  good 
of  others  is  possible  only  when  each  will  work,  not  for 
himself,  but  for  another,  and  not  only  will  not  keep  his 
labour  from  another,  but  will  give  it  to  every  one  who 
needs  it. 

This  faith  changed  my  valuation  of  what  is  good  and 
high,  bad  and  low.  Everything  wbich  heretofore  had 
seemed  to  me  good  and  high,  —  wealth,  property  of  every 
kind,  honour,  tbe  consciousness  of  one's  own  dignity, 
rights,  —  everything  now  became  bad  and  low ;  and 
everything  which  had  seemed  to  me  to  be  bad  and  low,  — 


MY    RELIGION  215 

working  for  others,  poverty,  humiliation,  renunciation  of 
all  property  and  of  all  rights,  —  became  good  and  high 
in  ray  eyes.  If  in  a  moment  of  forgetfulness  I  can  still 
be  carried  away  to  exercise  force  in  order  to  defend  myself 
and  others,  or  my  property  and  that  of  others,  I  can  no 
longer  calmly  and  conscientiously  serve  that  offence  which 
ruins  me  and  others,  — I  cannot  acquire  possessions ;  I 
cannot  exercise  any  violence  against  any  man  whatso- 
ever, unless  it  be  a  child,  and  in  his  case  only  in  order  to 
save  him  from  an  imminent  evil ;  I  cannot  take  part  in 
any  activity  of  power,  which  has  for  its  aim  the  protection 
of  men  and  of  their  property  by  the  exercise  of  violence  ; 
I  cannot  be  a  judge,  or  a  participant  in  any  court,  or  a 
chief,  or  a  participant  in  any  official  capacity ;  nor  can  I 
contribute  to  this,  that  others  should  take  part  in  courts 
and  offices. 

Christ  has  revealed  to  me  that  a  fifth  offence  which 
deprives  me  of  my  good  is  the  division  which  we  make 
between  our  own  nation  and  another.  I  cannot  help  but 
believe  in  this,  and  so,  if  in  a  minute  of  forgetfulness  there 
may  arise  in  me  a  hostile  feeling  toward  a  man  of  another 
nation,  I  cannot  help,  in  a  calm  moment,  but  recognize 
this  sentiment  as  false  ;  I  cannot  justify  myself,  as  I 
used  to  do  before,  by  recognizing  the  superiority  of  my 
nation  over  another,  and  by  the  delusions,  cruelty,  or  bar- 
barism of  another  nation ;  at  the  first  reminder  of  it  I 
cannot  help  but  try  to  be  more  friendly  to  a  man  of 
another  nation  than  to  a  countryman  of  mine. 

But  I  not  only  know  now  that  my  separation  from 
other  nations  is  an  evil  which  ruins  my  good,  I  know  also 
the  offence  which  has  led  me  into  this  evil,  and  I  can  no 
longer,  as  I  used  to  before,  serve  it  calmly  and  consciously. 
I  know  that  this  offence  consists  in  the  delusion  that  my 
good  is  connected  only  with  the  good  of  my  nation  and 
not  with  the  good  of  the  whole  world.  iSTow  I  know  that 
my  union  with  other  men  cannot  be  impaired  by  a  bor- 


216  MY    EELIGION 

der  line  and  by  governmental  decisions  as  to  my  belong- 
ing to  this  nation  or  to  that.  Now  I  know  that  all  men 
are  everywhere  equal  and  brothers. 

As  I  now  recall  the  evil  which  I  did,  experienced,  and 
saw  in  consequence  of  the  enmity  of  nations,  it  is  clear  to 
me  that  the  cause  of  everything  was  the  gross  deception 
called  patriotism  and  love  of  country.  As  I  recall  my 
education,  I  now  see  that  the  feeling  of  enmity  with  other 
nations,  the  feeling  of  separation  from  them,  never  existed 
in  me,  and  that  all  these  evil  sentiments  were  artificially 
inoculated  in  me  by  a  senseless  education.  I  now  under- 
stand the  meaning  of  the  words.  Do  good  to  your  enemies ; 
do  to  them  what  you  would  do  to  your  own  people.  You 
are  all  the  children  of  one  Father,  and  be  hke  your  Father, 
that  is,  make  no  division  between  your  nation  and  an- 
other, —  be  alike  to  all.  Now  I  understand  that  the  good 
is  possible  for  me  only  when  I  recognize  the  union  with 
all  men  of  the  world  without  any  exception. 

I  beheve  in  this,  and  this  faith  has  changed  my  whole 
valuation  of  what  is  good  and  bad,  high  and  low.  What 
before  presented  itself  to  me  as  good  and  high,  —  the  love 
of  country,  of  my  nation,  of  my  government,  the  serviug  of 
them  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  good  of  other  people,  the 
military  exploits  of  men,  —  all  this  appeared  disgusting 
and  miserable  to  me.  Everything  which  had  seemed  bad 
and  disgraceful,  —  renunciation  of  one's  own  country,  cos- 
mopolitanism, —  now,  on  the  contrary,  seemed  good  and 
high  to  me.  If  now,  in  a  minute  of  forgetfulness,  I  may 
cooperate  more  with  a  Eussian  than  with  a  foreigner,  and 
wish  success  to  the  Eussian  empire  or  nation,  I  can  no 
longer,  in  a  calm  minute,  serve  the  offence  which  ruins 
me  and  other  people.  I  cannot  acknowledge  any  countries 
or  nations,  I  cannot  participate  in  auy  disputes  between 
nations  and  countries,  neither  by  my  writings,  nor,  indeed, 
by  serving  any  country.  I  cannot  take  part  in  all  those 
affairs  which  are  based  on  the  distinction  of  countries, — 


MY   RELIGION  217 

neither  in  custom-houses  and  collections  of  taxes,  nor  in 
the  preparation  of  projectiles  or  ordnance,  nor  in  any  ac- 
tivity of  arming,  nor  in  military  service,  nor,  indeed,  in 
any  war  itself  with  other  nations,  —  and  I  cannot  con- 
tribute to  this,  that  men  should  do  so. 

I  understand  wherein  my  good  consists,  I  believe  in  it, 
and  so  I  cannot  do  what  unquestionably  deprives  me  of 
my  good. 

But  I  not  only  believe  in  this,  that  I  must  live  so,  —  I 
believe  that  if  I  hve  so  my  life  will  receive  the  only  pos- 
sible rational,  joyous  meaning  which  is  not  destroyed  by 
death. 

I  believe  that  the  rational  life  —  my  light  —  is  given 
me  for  no  other  purpose  than  that  I  may  shine  before  men, 
not  with  words,  but  with  good  deeds,  in  order  that  men 
may  glorify  the  Father  (Matt.  v.  16).  I  beheve  that  my 
life  and  my  knowledge  of  the  truth  is  the  talent  given  me 
to  work  on,  and  that  this  talent  is  the  fire  which  is  a  fire 
only  when  it  burns.  I  believe  that  I  am  Nineveh  in  re- 
lation to  other  Jonahs,  from  whom  I  have  learned  the 
truth,  and  that  I  am  also  Jonah  in  relation  to  other  Nine- 
vites,  to  whom  I  must  transmit  the  truth.  I  believe  that 
the  only  meaning  of  my  life  consists  in  living  in  the  light 
which  is  within  me,  and  in  not  putting  it  under  a  bushel, 
but  holding  it  high  before  all  men,  so  that  all  men  may 
see  it.  And  this  faith  gives  me  new  strength  in  the  exe- 
cution of  Christ's  teaching,  and  destroys  all  those  obstacles 
which  formerly  stood  before  me. 

What  formerly  vitiated  in  me  the  truth  and  practi- 
cableness  of  Christ's  teaching,  what  repelled  me  from  it,  — 
the  possibihty  of  deprivations,  sufferings,  and  death  at  the 
hands  of  people  who  did  not  know  Christ's  teaching,  — 
now  confirmed  for  me  the  truth  of  the  teaching  and  led 
me  to  it. 

Christ  said.  When  you  raise  up  the  son  of  man,  you 
will  all  of  you  be  attracted  to  me,  and  I  felt  that  I  was 


^18  MY    RELIGION 

irrepressibly  attracted  to  him.  He  also  said,  The  truth 
will  free  you,  and  I  felt  myself  absolutely  free. 

An  enemy  wiU  come  to  make  war,  or  simply  bad  people 
will  attack  me,  I  used  to  think,  and  if  I  shaU  not  defend 
myself,  they  will  rob  us,  and  will  disgrace,  torture,  and  kill 
me  and  my  neighbours,  and  that  seemed  terrible  to  me ; 
but  now  everything  which  formerly  used  to  trouble  me 
appeared  to  me  joyful  and  confirmed  the  truth.  Now  I 
know  that  the  enemies  and  so-called  malefactors  and  rob- 
bers are  all  men,  just  such  sons  of  man  as  I  am  ;  that  they 
love  the  good  and  hate  the  evil  just  like  me,  and  that  like 
me  they  seek  salvation  and  will  find  it  only  in  Christ's 
teaching.  Every  evil  which  they  will  do  me  will  be  an 
evil  for  themselves  as  well,  and  so  they  must  do  me  good. 
But  if  the  truth  is  not  known  to  them  and  they  do  evil, 
considering  it  good,  then  I  know  the  truth  for  the  very 
purpose  that  I  may  show  it  to  those  who  do  not  know  it ; 
but  I  cannot  show  it  to  them  otherwise  than  by  renounc- 
ing participation  in  the  evil,  and  by  confessing  the  truth 
through  deeds. 

The  enemies  will  come,  —  Germans,  Turks,  savages,  — 
and  if  we  shall  not  fight,  they  wiU  kill  us  all.  That  is 
not  true.  If  there  existed  a  society  of  Chiistians  who 
did  no  wrong  to  any  one,  and  who  gave  the  whole  surplus 
of  their  labour  to  other  people,  no  enemies,  —  neither 
Germans,  nor  Turks,  nor  savages,  —  would  kill  or  torture 
such  people.  They  would  take  everything  which  these 
would  give  them  anyway,  since  they  know  no  distinction 
between  a  Eussian,  a  German,  a  Turk,  and  a  savage.  But 
if  Christians  find  themselves  amidst  a  non-Christian  so- 
ciety, which  defends  itself  by  means  of  war,  there  appears 
here  for  the  Christian  the  possibility  of  aiding  the  men 
who  do  not  know  the  truth.  A  Christian  knows  the  truth 
for  the  very  reason  that  he  may  bear  witness  to  it  before 
those  who  do  not  know  it ;  but  he  cannot  bear  witness  to 
it  in  any  other  way  than  by  acts,  and  his  acts  consist  in 


MY   RELIGION  *Z1^ 

renouncing  war  and  doing  good  to  people,  without  the  dis- 
tinction between  so-called  enemies  and  his  own  people. 

Jkit  it  is  not  the  enemies^  but  evil  men  from  among  his 
neighbours,  who  will  attack  the  Christian's  family,  and  if 
he  does  not  defend  himself,  they  will  rob,  torture,  and  kill 
him  and  his  family.  That  again  is  not  true.  If  all  the 
members  of  the  family  are  Christians,  and  so  put  all  their 
lives  in  the  service  of  others,  there  will  not  be  found  a 
man  so  senseless  as  to  deprive  of  sustenance  or  kill  the 
people  who  serve  him.  Mikliikho-Maklay  settled  among 
the  most  beastly  of  savages,  as  they  say,  and  the  savages 
not  only  did  not  kill  him,  but  loved  liim  and  submitted  to 
him  for  no  other  reason  than  that  he  was  not  afraid  of 
them,  asked  nothing  of  them,  and  did  them  good.  But  if 
a  Christian  lives  among  a  non-Christian  family  and  rela- 
tives, who  defend  themselves  and  their  property  by  the 
exercise  of  force,  and  the  Christian  is  called  to  take  part 
in  this  defence,  this  call  is  for  him  a  call  for  the  exercise 
of  his  life's  work.  A  Christian  knows  the  truth  for  the 
very  purpose  that  he  may  show  it  to  others  and  most  of  all 
to  his  nearest  friends  who  are  connected  with  him  by  ties 
of  family  relationship  and  of  friendship ;  and  a  Christian 
cannot  show  the  truth  otherwise  than  by  avoiding  to  fall 
into  the  error  into  which  others  have  fallen,  by  avoiding 
to  side  either  wdth  the  attackers  or  with  the  defenders, 
and  giving  everything  to  others  and  showing  by  his  life 
that  he  needs  nothing  but  the  execution  of  God's  will,  and 
that  he  fears  nothing  but  the  departure  from  it. 

But  the  government  cannot  permit  a  member  of  society 
to  dechne  to  recognize  the  foundations  of  the  political  order 
and  to  refuse  to  execute  the  obligations  of  all  citizens. 
The  government  will  ask  a  Christian  to  take  an  oath,  to 
participate  in  the  court  and  in  military  service,  and  for  a 
refusal  will  subject  him  to  punishment,  exile,  incarceration, 
and  even  capital  punishment.  Again,  this  demand  of  the 
government  will  be  for  the  Christian  nothing  but  a  call 


220  MY   RELIGION 

for  him  to  execute  his  life's  work.  For  a  Christian  the 
demand  of  the  government  is  a  demand  of  men  who  do 
not  know  the  truth,  and  so  a  Christian,  wlio  knows  it, 
cannot  help  but  bear  witness  to  it  before  men,  who  do  not 
know  it.  The  violence,  imprisonment,  capital  punishment, 
to  which  a  Christian  is  subject  in  consequence  of  it,  give 
him  the  possibility  of  bearing  witness,  not  in  words,  but 
in  deeds.  All  violence,  —  war,  rapine,  executions,  —  is 
caused,  not  by  the  irrational  forces  of  Nature,  but  by  men 
who  err  and  are  deprived  of  the  knowledge  of  the  truth. 
And  so,  the  more  wrong  these  men  do  to  a  Christian,  the 
farther  are  they  removed  from  the  truth,  the  unhappier 
they  are,  and  the  more  do  they  need  the  knowledge  of 
the  truth.  Now  a  Christian  cannot  transmit  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  truth  to  others  in  any  other  way  than  by  re- 
frainiug  from  that  error  in  which  men  are  when  they  do 
evil  to  him,  and  by  paying  good  for  evil.  In  this  alone 
does  all  the  work  of  a  Christian's  life  and  its  whole  mean- 
ing consist,  and  this  is  not  destroyed  by  death. 

Men  who  are  united  with  one  another  through  decep- 
tion form,  as  it  were,  a  solid  mass.  The  solidarity  of  this 
mass  is  the  evil  of  the  world.  All  rational  activity  of 
humanity  is  directed  to  the  destruction  of  this  cohesive 
force  of  deceit. 

All  revolutions  are  attempts  at  a  violent  cleavage  of 
this  mass.  People  imagine  that  if  they  can  break  up  this 
mass,  it  will  no  longer  be  a  mass,  and  so  they  strike  at 
it;  but  in  their  attempt  to  break  it,  they  only  forge  it 
more  solidly ;  the  cohesion  of  the  particles  will  not  be 
destroyed  so  long  as  the  internal  force  is  not  communi- 
cated to  the  particles  of  the  mass,  causing  them  to  be 
separated  from  it. 

The  force  of  the  cohesion  of  men  is  the  lie,  the  decep- 
tion. The  force  which  liberates  each  particle  of  the 
human  cohesion  is  truth.  Truth  is  not  communicated 
to  people  except  by  works  of  truth. 


O 


*5 


hi 


MY    RELIGION  221 

Nothing  but  works  of  truth,  by  introducing  the  light 
into  the  consciousness  of  each  man,  destroy  the  cohesion 
of  the  deceit,  tear  men  one  after  another  away  from  the 
mass  which  is  connected  through  the  cohesion  of  deceit. 

This  work  has  been  going  on  for  eighteen  hundred  years. 

Ever  since  Christ's  commandments  were  placed  before 
humanity,  this  work  has  been,  and  it  will  not  end  till  all 
be  fulfilled,  as  Christ  says  (Matt.  v.  18). 

The  church,  which  was  formed  from  those  who  wanted 
to  unite  men  by  affirming  with  oaths  that  they  were  in 
the  truth,  has  long  been  dead.  But  the  church  which  is 
formed  of  men,  not  by  promises,  nor  by  anointment,  but 
by  deeds  of  truth  and  of  the  good  united  into  one,  has 
always  lived  and  will  always  live.  This  church,  as  before, 
so  even  now,  is  formed,  not  of  men  who  exclaim.  Lord, 
Lord!  and  do  unrighteousness  (Matt.  vii.  21,  22),  but  of 
men  who  hear  these  words  and  do  them. 

The  men  of  this  church  know  that  their  life  is  good 
when  they  do  not  violate  the  union  wdth  the  son  of  man, 
and  that  this  good  is  violated  only  by  the  non-observance 
of  Christ's  commandments,  and  so  the  men  of  this  church 
cannot  help  but  do  these  commandments  and  teach 
others  to  do  them. 

Whether  there  be  few  such  men,  or  many,  this  is  the 
church,  which  no  one  can  overcome  and  which  all  men 
will  join. 

Fear  not,  little  flock  ;  for  it  is  your  Father's  good  pleas- 
ure to  give  you  the  kingdom  (Luke  xii.  32). 

Moscow,  January  22,  I884. 


ON   LIFE 

i888 


ON  LIFE 


L'homme  n'est  qu'un  roseau,  le  plus  faible  de  la  nature, 
mais  c'est  un  roseau  pensant.  II  ne  faut  pas  que  I'univers 
entier  s'arme  pour  I'^craser.  Une  vapeur,  une  goutte  d'eau 
sufBt  pour  le  tuer.  Mais  quaud  I'univers  I'^craserait,  rhomme 
serait  encore  plus  noble  que  ce  qui  le  tue,  parce  qu'il  salt  qu'il 
meurt:  et  I'avautage  que  I'univers  asur  lui,  I'univers  n'en  salt 
rien.  Ainsi,  toute  notre  dignity  consiste  dans  la  pens^e. 
C'est  de  \k  qu'il  faut  nous  relever,  uon  de  I'espace  et  de  la 
dur^e.  Travaillous  done  a  bien  penser  :  voil^  le  principe  de  la 
morale.  — Pascal. 

Zwei  Dinge  erfiillen  mir  das  Gemiith  mit  immer  neuer  und 
zunehmender  Bewuuderung  und  P^hrfurcht,  je  bfter  und 
anhaltender  sich  das  Naclidenken  damit  beschaftigt :  der  bes- 
tirnte  Himineliiber  mir,  und  das  moralische  Gesetz  in  mir.  .  .  . 
Das  erste  fangt  von  dem  Platze  an,  den  ich  in  der  ausseru 
Sinnenwelt  einnehme,  und  erweitert  die  Verkniipfung,  darin 
ich  stehe,  ins  unabsehlich  Grosse  mit  Welten  iiber  Welten  und 
Systemen  von  Systemen,  iiberdem  noch  in  grenzenlose  Zeiten 
ihrer  periodischen  Bewegung,  deren  Anfaug  und  Fortdauer. 
Das  zweite  fangt  von  meinem  uusicbtbaren  Selbst,  meiner 
Persoulichkeit,  an,  und  stellt  mich  in  einer  Welt  dar,  die  wahre 
Unendlichkeit  hat,  aber  nur  dem  Verstaude  spiirbar  ist,  und 
mit  welcher  ich  mich,  nicht  wie  dort  in  bloss  zufalliger, 
sonderu  allgemeiuer  und  nothwendiger  Verkniipfung  erkeune. 
—  Kant  (Krit.  der  pract.  Vern.     Beschluss). 

A  new  commandment  I  give  unto  you,  that  ye  love  one 
another.  —  John  xiii.  34- 

INTEODUCTION 

Let  us  imagine  a  man,  whose  only  means  of  support 

is  a  mill.     He  is  the  son  and  the  grandson  of  a  miller, 

and  knows  well  by  tradition  how  to  manage  the  mill  in 

all  its  details,  so  that  it  may  grind  properly.     Not  know- 

225 


226  ON   LIFE 

ing  any  mechanics,  this  man  fixed,  the  best  way  he  could, 
the  various  parts  of  the  mill,  so  as  to  have  it  grind  well, 
and  he  lived  and  earned  his  sustenance. 

But  this  man  happened  to  reflect  on  the  construction 
of  the  mill,  having  heard  some  indistinct  talks  about 
mechanics,  and  began  to  observe  what  made  the  different 
parts  move. 

From  the  rynd  to  the  millstone,  from  the  millstone  to 
the  axletree,  from  the  axletree  to  the  wheel,  from  the 
wheel  to  the  sluice,  the  dam,  and  the  water,  he  reached  a 
point  when  he  saw  clearly  that  the  whole  matter  was  in 
the  dam  and  the  river.  And  he  rejoiced  so  much  at  this 
discovery  that,  instead  of  testing  the  quality  of  the 
milling,  as  he  had  done  before,  and  accordingly  raising  or 
lowering  the  millstones  and  clamping  them,  and  tight- 
ening and  releasing  the  belt,  he  began  to  study  the  river. 
And  so  the  mill  began  to  run  down.  He  was  told  that 
he  was  not  doing  right,  but  he  disputed  with  such  men, 
and  continued  to  reflect  on  the  river.  And  he  busied 
himself  so  long  and  so  assiduously  with  this,  and  so 
warmly  and  continually  disputed  with  those  who  showed 
him  the  irregularity  of  his  method  of  reasoning,  that  at 
last  he  convinced  himself  that  the  river  was  the  mill. 

To  all  the  proofs  of  the  incorrectness  of  his  reflections 
such  a  miller  will  reply  :  "  No  mill  grinds  without  water  ; 
consequently,  in  order  that  we  may  know  the  mill,  we 
must  know  how  to  regulate  the  water,  and  what  the  force 
of  its  motion  is,  and  whence  it  comes,  —  consequently,  in 
order  that  we  may  know  the  mill,  we  must  be  acquainted 
with  the  river." 

Logically  the  miller's  reflection  is  unanswerable.  The 
only  means  of  bringing  him  out  of  his  error  is  to  show 
him  that  in  all  reasoning  it  is  not  so  much  the  reasoning 
that  is  of  importance,  as  the  place  occupied  by  the 
reasoning,  that  is,  that  for  fruitful  reasoning  it  is  first 
of  all  necessary  to  know  what  to  reason  about  at  first, 


ON   LIFE  227 

and  what  later;  to  show  him  that  a  rational  activity- 
differs  from  an  irrational  one  only  in  this,  that  the 
rational  activity  classifies  its  reflections  in  the  order  of 
their  importance,  as  to  which  is  to  be  the  first,  the 
second,  the  third,  the  tenth,  and  so  forth,  while  an 
irrational  activity  consists  in  reasoning  without  this 
order.  It  is  necessary  to  show  him  this  also  that  the 
determination  of  this  order  is  not  accidental,  but  depends  on 
the  end  for  which  this  process  of  reasoning  is  taking  place. 

The  end  of  the  reasoning  determines  the  order  in  which 
the  separate  reflections  are  to  be  grouped  in  order  that 
they  may  be  sensible ;  and  a  reflection  which  is  not  con- 
nected with  the  general  aim  of  all  the  reflections  is  irra- 
tional, no  matter  how  logical  it  may  be. 

The  end  of  the  miller  is  to  have  good  milling,  and  this 
end,  if  he  does  not  lose  sight  of  it,  will  determine  for  him 
the  unquestionable  order  and  the  consecutiveness  of  his 
reflections  about  the  millstones,  the  wheel,  the  dam,  and 
the  river. 

But  without  this  relation  to  the  end  of  the  reflections, 
the  reflections  of  the  miller,  no  matter  how  logical  and 
beautiful  they  may  be,  will  in  themselves  be  irregular 
and,  above  all,  void  :  they  will  be  similar  to  the  reflections 
of  Kifa  Moki^vich,  who  tried  to  reason  out  what  the  shell 
of  an  elephant's  egg  would  be,  if  elephants  were  hatched 
out  of  eggs,  like  birds. 

Precisely  such,  in  my  opinion,  are  the  reflections  of  our 
contemporary  science  about  life. 

Life  is  the  mill  which  a  man  wants  to  investigate. 
The  mill  is  needed  that  it  may  grind  well,  and  life  is 
needed  only  that  it  may  be  good.  This  end  of  the  investi- 
gation a  man  cannot  for  a  minute  abandon  with  impunity. 
If  he  abandons  it,  his  reflections  will  inevitably  lose  their 
place  and  become  like  Kifa  Moki^vich's  reflections  as  to 
what  kind  of  powder  is  needed  in  order  to  crack  the  shell 
of  an  elephant  egg. 


228  ON   LIFE 

A  man  investigates  life  only  to  make  it  better,  and  thus 
has  life  been  investigated  by  those  wlio  have  advanced 
humanity  on  the  path  of  science.  But,  by  the  side  of 
these  true  teachers  and  benefactors  of  humanity,  there 
have  always  been  reasoners  who  abandon  the  end  of 
the  reflections,  and  instead  trouble  themselves  with  the 
question  as  to  what  causes  life,  what  makes  the  mill  go. 
Some  say  it  is  the  water ;  others,  that  it  is  the  construc- 
tion. The  dispute  waxes  hot,  and  the  subject  under  dis- 
cussion is  removed  farther  and  farther,  and  gives  way 
entirely  to  foreign  matters. 

There  is  an  ancient  jest  about  the  dispute  of  a  Jew  and 
a  Christian.  The  story  tells  how  the  Christian,  replying 
to  the  intricate  cunning  of  the  Jew,  struck  the  Jew's  bald 
spot  with  the  palm  of  his  hand,  so  as  to  produce  a  smack- 
ing sound,  and  then  put  the  question :  "  What  made  it 
smack  ?  The  hand  or  the  bald  spot  ? "  And  so  the  dis- 
pute about  faith  gave  way  to  a  new,  insoluble  question. 

Something  similar  has  since  the  most  ancient  times 
taken  place  in  relation  to  the  question  about  life,  by  the 
side  of  the  real  knowledge  of  men. 

Since  the  most  ancient  times  there  have  been  known 
the  reflections  as  to  whence  life  comes,  whether  from  an 
immaterial  principle  or  from  various  combinations  of 
matter.  These  reflections  have  been  continued  up  to  the 
present  time,  so  that  no  end  of  them  can  be  foreseen,  be- 
cause the  end  of  all  these  reflections  has  been  abandoned, 
and  they  discuss  life  independently  of  its  end,  and  by  the 
word  hfe  no  longer  understand  life,  but  only  that  from 
which  it  comes,  or  that  which  accompanies  it. 

Speaking  now  of  life,  not  only  iu  scientific  books,  but 
also  iu  private  conversations,  they  do  not  speak  of  the 
life  which  we  all  know,  of  which  I  am  conscious  through 
those  sufferings  which  I  fear  and  hate,  and  through  those 
joys  and  pleasures  which  I  wish,  but  of  something  which 
may  have  originated  from  the  play  of  accident  according 


ON   LIFE  229 

to  some  physical  laws,  or,  perhaps,  because  it  has  some 
mysterious  cause. 

Now  they  ascribe  the  word  life  to  something  dispu- 
table, which  has  not  in  itself  the  chief  symptoms  of  life, 
the  consciousness  of  suffering  and  enjoyment,  the  striving 
after  the  good. 

"  La  vie  est  I'ensemble  des  fonctions,  qui  resistent  a  la 
mort.  La  vie  est  I'ensemble  des  ph(^nom^nes,  qui  se  suc- 
c^dent  pendant  un  temps  limits  dans  un  etre  organist." 

"  Life  is  a  double  process  of  decomposition  and  compo- 
sition, general  and  at  the  same  time  uninterrupted.  Life 
is  a  certain  combination  of  heterogeneous  modifications 
taking  place  consecutively.  Life  is  an  organism  in  action. 
Life  is  an  especial  activity  of  an  organic  substance.  Life 
is  an  adaptation  of  internal  to  external  relations." 

Not  to  speak  of  the  inaccuracies  and  tautologies  in 
which  all  these  definitions  teem,  their  essence  is  always 
the  same,  namely,  what  is  defined  is  not  what  all  men 
alike  indisputably  understand  by  the  word  life,  but  cer- 
tain processes,  which  accompany  life  and  other  phenomena. 

The  majority  of  these  definitions  are  applicable  to  the 
forming  crystal ;  some  of  these  definitions  are  appHcable 
to  the  activity  of  fermentation  and  decomposition,  and  all 
of  them  apply  equally  to  the  life  of  each  separate  cell  of 
my  body,  for  which  there  exists  nothing,  —  neither  good 
nor  bad.  A  few  processes,  which  take  place  in  the  crys- 
tals, in  the  protoplasm,  in  the  nucleus  of  the  protoplasm, 
in  the  cells  of  my  body  and  of  other  bodies,  are  called  by 
the  name  which  in  me  is  inseparably  connected  with  the 
consciousness  of  striving  after  my  good. 

The  discussion  of  certain  conditions  of  Hfe  as  of  life  is 
like  the  discussion  of  the  river  as  of  the  mill.  These 
discussions  may  be  very  necessary  for  some  purposes,  but 
they  do  not  touch  the  subject  which  they  are  to  discuss. 
Thus,  all  the  conclusions  about  life  which  are  deduced 
from  these  discussions,  cannot  help  but  be  false. 


230  ON   LIFE 

The  word  life  is  very  short  and  very  clear,  and  every- 
body knows  what  it  means ;  but  even  because  all  know 
what  it  means,  we  are  obliged  always  to  use  it  in  this 
universally  intelligible  significance.  This  word  is  intel- 
ligible to  all,  not  because  it  is  very  accurately  defined 
by  other  words  and  concepts,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
because  this  word  signifies  a  fundamental  concept,  from 
which  many  other,  if  not  all,  concepts  are  deduced,  and 
so,  to  make  our  deductions  from  this  concept,  we  are 
obliged  above  all  else  to  accept  it  in  its  central,  indubita- 
ble meaning.  But  this,  it  seems  to  me,  has  been  over- 
looked by  the  disputants  in  relation  to  the  concept  of  life. 
What  has  happened  is,  that  the  fundamental  concept  of 
life,  which  in  the  beginning  was  not  taken  in  its  central 
meaning,  on  account  of  the  disputes  departed  more  and 
more  from  the  accepted  central  meaning,  finally  lost  its 
fundamental  meaning,  and  received  another,  improper 
meaning.  What  has  happened  is  that  the  centre,  from 
which  the  figure  was  described,  has  been  abandoned  and 
transferred  to  a  new  point. 

They  dispute  whether  there  is  life  in  a  cell  or  a  proto- 
plasm, or  even  lower  down,  in  inorganic  matter.  But, 
before  disputing,  we  ought  to  ask  ourselves  whether  we 
have  tlie  right  to  ascribe  the  concept  of  life  to  the  cell. 

We  say,  for  example,  that  there  is  hfe  in  the  cell,  that 
the  cell  is  a  living  being,  whereas  the  fundamental  con- 
cept of  human  life  and  that  of  the  life  which  is  found  in 
the  cell  are  two  concepts  which  are  not  only  quite  distinct, 
but  which  cannot  in  any  way  be  connected.  One  concept 
excludes  the  other.  I  discover  that  my  body,  without  a 
residue,  is  all  composed  of  cells.  These  cells,  I  am  told, 
have  also  the  property  of  life  like  myself,  and  are  just 
such  a  living  being  as  I  am ;  but  I  recognize  myself  as 
living  only  because  I  am  conscious  of  myself  with  all 
my  cells,  of  which  I  am  composed,  as  of  one  inseparable 
living  being.     Now  I  am  told  that  all  of  me,  without  any 


ON   LIFE  231 

residue,  is  composed  of  cells.  To  what  do  I  ascribe  the 
property  of  Hfe,  to  the  cells,  or  to  myself?  If  I  admit 
that  the  cells  have  life,  I  must  from  the  concept  of  life 
abstract  the  chief  symptom  of  my  hfe,  —  the  couscious- 
ness  of  self  as  one  living  being;  but  if  I  admit  that  I 
have  life  as  a  separate  being,  it  is  obvious  that  I  can  in 
no  way  ascribe  the  same  properties  to  the  cells,  of  which 
my  whole  body  is  composed,  and  of  the  consciousness  of 
which  I  know  nothing. 

Either  I  hve,  and  there  are  in  me  non-living  particles, 
called  cells,  or  there  is  in  me  a  conglomeration  of  living 
cells,  and  my  consciousness  of  life  is  not  life,  but  an  illusion. 

We  do  not  say  that  in  the  cell  there  is  something  which 
is  called  trife,  but  say  that  it  is  life.  We  say  hfe,  because 
by  this  word  we  do  not  mean  some  X,  but  a  well-defined 
quantity,  which  we  all  call  by  the  same  name  and  know 
only  from  within  ourselves,  as  a  consciousness  of  ourselves 
with  our  one,  inseparable  body,  —  and  so  such  a  concept 
is  not  applicable  to  those  cells  of  which  my  body  is  com- 
posed. 

No  matter  with  what  investigations  and  observations  a 
man  may  busy  himself,  —  he  is  obliged,  for  the  expression 
of  his  observations,  to  understand  by  each  w^ord  what  is. 
indisputably  understood  in  the  same  way  by  all  men,  and 
not  employ  a  concept,  which  he  needs,  but  which  in  no 
way  coincides  with  the  fundamental,  universally  intel- 
ligible concept.  If  it  is  possible  so  to  employ  the  word 
life  that  it  expresses  indiscriminately  the  quality  of  the 
whole  subject  and  entirely  different  quahties  of  all  its 
component  parts,  as  is  the  case  with  the  cell  and  the 
animal  consisting  of  cells,  then  it  is  possible  so  to  employ 
other  words  as  well :  for  example,  it  is  possible  to  say 
that,  since  all  thoughts  consist  of  words,  and  words  of 
letters,  and  letters  of  strokes,  the  drawing  of  strokes  is  the 
same  as  an  exposition  of  ideas,  and  so  strokes  may  be 
called  ideas. 


232 


ON   LIFE 


It  is,  for  example,  a  most  common  phenomenon  in  the 
scientific  world  to  hear  and  read  reflections  about  the  ori- 
gin of  life  from  the  play  of  physical,  mechanical  forces. 

Almost  the  majority  of  scientific  men  hold  to  this 

I  find  it  hard  to  express  myself  —  opinion,  no,  not  opinion, 
paradox,  to  this  joke  or  riddle,  I  might  say. 

They  affirm  that  life  is  due  to  the  play  of  physical  and 
mechanical  forces,  —  those  physical  forces,  which  we 
called  physical  and  mechanical  only  in  contradistinction 
to  the  concept  of  life. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  word  life,  incorrectly  applied  to 
concepts  foreign  to  it,  by  departing  more  and  more  from 
its  fundamental  meaning  has  in  this  significance  been 
removed  from  its  centre  to  such  an  extent  that  life  is 
assumed  to  be  where,  according  to  our  conceptions,  life 
cannot  be.  It  is  as  though  they  asserted  that  there  is  a 
circle  or  sphere  whose  centre  is  outside  its  periphery. 

Indeed,  Hfe,  which  I  cannot  present  to  myself  otherwise 
tlian  as  a  striving  from  bad  to  good,  takes  place  in  a  terri- 
tory where  I  can  see  neither  bad  nor  good.  Obviously 
the  centre  of  the  concept  of  hfe  has  been  entirely  trans- 
posed. Moreover,  following  the  investigations  of  this 
something,  called  life,  I  see  that  these  investigations  touch 
on  concepts  which  are  scarcely  known  to  me.  I  see  a 
whole  series  of  new  concepts  and  words,  which  have  their 
conventional  significance  in  scientific  language,  but  wliich 
have  nothing  in  common  with  existing  concepts. 

The  concept  of  life,  as  I  understand  it,  is  not  understood 
in  the  same  way  in  which  all  understand  it,  and  the  con- 
cepts deduced  from  it  also  fail  to  agree  with  the  customary 
concepts;  there  appear  instead  new,  conventional  con- 
cepts, which  receive  corresponding  invented  appellations. 

Human  language  is  more  and  more  pushed  out  from 
scientific  investigations,  and  instead  of  the  word,  as  a 
means  of  expressing  existing  objects,  they  enthrone  a  sci- 
entific Volapiik,  which  differs  from  the  real  Volaplik  in 


ON    LIFE  233 

that  the  latter  has  general  words  for  existing  objects  and 
concepts,  wliereas  the  first,  the  scientific  Volapuk,  applies 
non-existing  words  to  non-existing  concepts. 

The  only  means  for  the  mental  intercourse  of  men  is 
the  word,  and,  to  make  this  intercourse  possible,  words 
have  to  be  used  in  such  a  way  as  to  evoke  in  all  men 
corresponding  and  exact  concepts.  But  if  it  is  possible 
to  use  words  at  random,  and  to  understand  by  them  any- 
thing we  may  think  of,  it  is  better  not  to  speak  at  all, 
but  to  indicate  everything  by  signs. 

I  will  admit  that  to  define  the  laws  of  the  world  from 
mere  deductions  of  the  mind,  without  experience  and 
observation,  is  a  false  and  unscientific  way,  that  is,  one 
that  cannot  give  any  true  knowledge ;  but  if  we  were  to 
study  the  phenomena  of  the  world  by  experiment  and 
observation,  and  yet  were  guided  in  these  experiments 
and  observations  by  concepts  which  are  neither  funda- 
mental nor  common  to  all,  but  by  conventional  ones,  and 
were  to  describe  the  results  of  these  experiments  with 
words  to  which  different  meanings  may  be  attached, 
would  not  that  be  still  worse  ?  The  best  apothecary 
shop  would  be  productive  of  the  greatest  harm,  if  the 
labels  were  pasted  on  the  bottles,  not  according  to  their 
contents,  but  as  the  apothecary  might  choose. 

But  I  shall  be  told :  "  Science  does  not  propose  to 
investigate  the  whole  totahty  of  life  (including  in  it  will, 
the  desire  of  good,  and  the  spiritual  world) ;  it  abstracts 
from  the  concept  of  life  such  phenomena  only  as  are  sub- 
ject to  its  experimental  investigations." 

This  would  be  beautiful  and  legitimate.  But  we  know 
that  this  is  not  at  all  the  case  in  the  conception  of  the 
men  of  science  of  our  time.  If  they  first  recognized 
the  concept  of  life  in  its  central  meaning,  in  the  way 
all  understand  it,  and  if  then  it  were  clearly  shown  that 
science,  having  abstracted  from  this  concept  all  sides  but 
one,  which  is  subject  to  external  observation,  views  the  phe- 


234  ON   LIFE 

nomena  from  this  one  side  alone,  for  which  it  has  methods 
of  investigation  peculiar  to  it,  then  it  would  be  beautiful,  and 
an  entirely  different  matter  :  in  that  case  the  place  which 
science  would  occupy  and  the  results  at  which  we  should 
arrive  on  the  basis  of  science  would  be  quite  different. 
They  ought  to  say  what  is,  and  not  conceal  what  we  all 
know.  Do  we  not  know  that  the  majority  of  the  experi- 
mental scientific  investigators  of  life  are  fully  convinced 
that  they  are  not  studying  one  side  of  life  alone,  but  all 
life? 

Astronomy,  mechanics,  physics,  chemistry,  and  all  the 
other  sciences  taken  together,  and  each  separately,  work 
out  the  particular  side  of  life  subject  to  them,  without 
arriving  at  any  results  about  life  in  general.  Only  in  the 
times  of  their  crudity,  that  is,  of  their  obscurity  and 
indefiniteness,  some  of  these  sciences  endeavoured  from 
their  point  of  view  to  embrace  all  the  phenomena  of  life, 
and  went  astray  in  their  attempts  at  inventing  new  con- 
cepts and  words.  Thus  it  was  with  astronomy,  when  it 
was  astrology,  and  thus  it  was  with  chemistry,  when 
it  was  alchemy.  The  same  is  now  taking  place  vdth  that 
experimental  evolutionary  science  which,  analyzing  one 
side  or  several  sides  of  life,  makes  pretensions  that  it  is 
studying  the  whole  of  life. 

Men  with  such  a  false  view  of  their  science  will  not 
recognize  that  only  a  few  sides  of  hfe  are  subject  to  their 
investigations ;  they  affirm  that  the  whole  of  life  with  all 
its  manifestations  will  be  investigated  by  them  by  means 
of  external  experiment. 

"  If,"  they  say,  "  psychics "  (they  are  fond  of  this  in- 
definite word  of  their  Volapiik)  "  is  still  unknown  to  us, 
it  will  be  known  some  day.  By  investigating  one  or 
several  sides  of  vital  phenomena  we  learn  all  sides,  that 
is,  in  other  words,  if  we  shall  for  a  very  long  time  and 
very  assiduously  look  at  an  object  from  one  side,  we  shall 
see  the  object  from  aU  sides,  and  even  from  the  middle." 


ON    LIFE  235 

However  surprising  this  strange  doctrine  is,  which  can 
be  explained  only  by  the  fanaticism  of  superstition,  it 
exists  and,  like  any  fanatical  doctrine,  produces  its  dis- 
astrous effect  in  that  it  directs  the  activity  of  the  human 
mind  upon  a  false  and  useless  path.  It  is  the  ruin  of 
conscientious  workers,  who  devote  their  life  to  the  study 
of  what  is  almost  unnecessary ;  it  is  the  ruin  of  the  ma- 
terial forces  of  men,  in  that  they  are  turned  into  the  wrong 
direction ;  it  is  the  ruin  of  the  young  generations,  which 
are  directed  upon  the  most  useless  activity  of  a  Kifa  Mo- 
ki^vich,  advanced  to  the  degree  of  the  highest  service  of 
humanity. 

They  usually  say  that  science  studies  life  from  all  its 
sides ;  but  the  trouble  is  that  every  object  has  as  many 
sides  as  there  are  radii  in  a  sphere,  that  is,  an  endless 
number,  and  that  it  is  not  possible  to  study  it  from  all 
sides,  but  we  must  know  from  which  side  it  is  more  im- 
portant and  necessary,  and  from  which  it  is  less  important 
and  less  necessary.  Just  as  it  is  impossible  to  approach 
an  object  from  all  sides  at  once,  so  it  is  impossible  to 
study  all  the  phenomena  of  life  from  all  sides  at  once. 
The  cousecutiveness  establishes  itself  in  a  natural  man- 
ner, and  in  this  hes  the  whole  matter.  This  cousecutive- 
ness presents  itself  only  through  the  comprehension  of  life. 

Nothing  but  a  correct  comprehension  of  life  gives  the 
proper  meaning  and  direction  to  science  in  general  and 
each  science  in  particular,  distributing  them  according  to 
the  importance  of  their  significance  in  respect  to  life.  But 
if  the  comprehension  of  Hfe  is  not  such  as  is  inherent  in 
us,  the  science  itself  will  be  false. 

Not  what  we  shall  call  science  will  define  life,  but  our 
conception  of  life  will  determine  what  must  be  regarded 
as  science ;  and  so,  in  order  that  science  may  be  science, 
we  must  first  solve  the  question  as  to  what  is  science,  and 
what  not ;  but,  to  do  this,  the  concept  of  life  must  be 
made  clear. 


236  ON    LIFE 

I  will  frankly  express  my  idea  :  we  all  know  the  funda- 
mental dogma  of  faith  of  this  false  experimental  science. 
There  exists  matter  and  its  energy.  Energy  moves ;  the 
mechanical  motion  passes  into  molecular  motion,  and  is 
expressed  by  heat,  electricity,  and  nerve  and  brain  activ- 
ity. All  phenomena  of  life  without  any  exception  are 
explained  as  relations  of  energies.  Everything  is  so  beau- 
tiful, simple,  clear,  and,  above  all,  convenient.  And  so, 
if  what  you  desire  so  much  and  what  so  simpHfies  your 
whole  life  does  not  exist,  it  has  all  to  be  invented  in  some 
wav. 

And  so  here  is  my  Mdiole  bold  idea :  the  chief  portion 
of  energy,  of  the  impassioned  activity  of  experimental 
science,  is  based  on  the  desire  to  invent  all  that  is  needed 
for  the  confirmation  of  so  convenient  a  conception. 

In  the  whole  activity  of  this  science  one  sees  not  so 
much  the  desire  to  investigate  the  phenomena  of  life,  as 
the  one,  ever  present  anxiety  to  prove  the  correctness 
of  one's  fundamental  dogma.  What  energy  has  been 
wasted  on  the  attempts  to  prove  the  origin  of  the  organic 
from  the  iuorgauic  and  of  the  psychicaractivity  from  the 
progresses  of  the  organism  ! 

The  inorganic  does  not  pass  into  the  organic:  let  us 
search  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  —  we  shall  find  there  a 
thing  which  we  shall  call  a  nucleus,  a  moneron.  It  is 
not  there  either :  let  us  believe  that  it  will  be  found,  the 
more  so  since  we  have  at  our  service  a  whole  infinitude 
of  ages,  whither  we  can  cram  down  everything  which 
ought  to  exist  according  to  our  belief,  but  does  not  exist 
in  reality. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  transition  from  the  organic 
activity  into  the  psychic.  We  haven't  it?  We  beheve 
that  it  will  be,  and  all  the  efforts  of  the  mind  are  directed 
toward  proving  at  least  the  possibility  of  it. 

The  discussions  of  what  has  no  reference  to  life,  namely 
whence  life  comes,  —  whether  it  is  animism,  or  vitaHsm, 


ON    LIFE  237 

or  the  concept  of  some  special  force,  —  have  concealed 
from  men  the  chief  question  of  life,  that  question  without 
which  the  concept  of  life  loses  its  meaning,  and  have 
slowly  brought  the  men  of  science,  —  those  who  ought  to 
lead  others,  —  to  the  condition  of  a  man  who  is  walking, 
and  is  even  in  a  hurry,  but  has  forgotten  whither  he  is 
going. 

But,  maybe,  I  intentionally  try  not  to  see  those  enor- 
mous results  which  science  gives  in  its  present  direction. 
However,  no  results  whatever  can  change  its  false  direc- 
tion. Let  us  assume  the  impossible :  that  that  which 
modern  science  wishes  to  find  out  about  life,  of  which  it 
asserts  (though  it  does  not  believe  so)  that  it  will  all  be 
revealed,  —  let  us  assume  that  it  is  all  revealed  and  as 
clear  as  day.  It  is  clear  how  through  adaptation  the 
organic  is  born  out  of  inorganic  matter,  and  how  physical 
energies  pass  into  feelings,  will,  thought,  and  all  this  is 
known  not  only  to  gymnasiasts,  but  also  to  village  school- 
boys, 

I  know  that  certain  thoughts  and  feelings  are  due  to 
such  and  such  motions.  What  of  it  ?  Can  I  guide  these 
motions,  or  not,  in  order  that  I  may  evoke  in  myself  a 
given  series  of  thoughts  ?  But  the  question  as  to 
what  thoughts  and  feelings  I  must  evoke  in  myself 
and  in  others  remains  not  only  unsolved,  but  even  un- 
touched. 

I  know  that  the  men  of  science  find  no  difficulty  in 
answering  this  question.  The  solution  of  this  question 
seems  very  simple  to  them,  as  simple  as  the  solution  of  a 
difficult  question  appears  to  a  man  who  does  not  under- 
stand it.  The  solution  of  the  question  as  to  how  life  is 
to  be  arranged,  when  it  is  in  our  power,  seems  very  simple 
to  the  men  of  science.  They  say :  "  Arrange  it  in  such  a 
way  that  men  may  be  able  to  gratify  their  needs ;  science 
works  out  the  means,  in  the  first  place,  for  regularly  dis- 
tributing the  gratification  of  needs,  and  in  the  second,  for 


238  ON    LIFE 

producing  so  much  and  so  easily  that  all  needs  may  be 
easily  gratified,  and  then  all  men  will  be  happy." 

But  if  you  ask  what  is  meant  by  need,  and  what  the 
limits  of  needs  are,  they  reply  to  this  simply :  "  That 
is  what  science  is  for,  —  to  classify  the  needs  into  phys- 
ical, mental,  a^sthetical,  even  moral  needs,  and  clearly  to 
define  what  needs  are  legitimate,  and  to  what  extent,  and 
what  are  illegitimate,  and  to  what  extent.  Some  day  it 
will  determine  all  that." 

But  if  you  ask  what  one  is  to  be  guided  by  in  the 
determination  of  the  legitimacy  or  illegitimacy  of  these 
needs,  they  answer  boldly  :  "  By  the  study  of  the  needs." 

But  the  word  need  has  only  two  meanings,  —  either 
that  of  a  condition  of  existence,  and  of  conditions  of  exist- 
ence of  any  object  there  is  an  endless  number,  and  so  all 
conditions  cannot  be  studied ;  or  that  of  the  living  being's 
demand  of  the  good,  which  is  cognized  and  determined 
by  consciousness  alone,  and  so  can  still  less  be  studied  by 
experimental  science. 

There  is  an  institution,  a  corporation,  or  an  assemblage 
of  men  or  minds,  which  is  infalhble  and  is  called  science. 
This  science  will  determine  all  that  at  some  future  time. 

Is  it  not  evident  that  all  this  solution  of  the  question 
is  only  a  paraphrased  kingdom  of  the  Messiah,  in  which 
science  plays  the  r81e  of  the  Messiah,  and  that,  in  order 
that  such  an  explanation  may  explain  anything,  it  is 
necessary  to  believe  in  the  dogmas  of  science  as  uncondi- 
tionally as  the  Jews  believe  in  the  Messiah,  which  the 
orthodox  men  of  science  actually  do,  —  but  with  this  dif- 
ference: an  orthodox  Jew,  who  sees  in  the  Messiah  a 
messenger  of  God,  can  believe  that  he  will  arrange  every- 
thing excellently  by  dint  of  his  power,  while  an  orthodox 
man  of  science  by  the  nature  of  the  thing  cannot  believe 
that  it  is  possible  by  means  of  an  external  study  of  the 
needs  to  solve  the  chief  and  only  question  of  life. 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   CONTRADICTION    OF   HUMAN   LIFE 

Every  man  lives  only  that  he  may  feel  well,  —  for  his 
own  good.  If  he  does  not  feel  the  desire  of  good  for  him- 
self, he  does  not  feel  himself  living.  Man  cannot  present 
to  himself  life  without  the  desire  of  good  for  himself. 
To  live  is  for  every  man  the  same  as  to  wish  and  obtain 
the  good ;  to  wish  and  obtain  the  good  is  the  same  as  to 
live. 

Man  feels  life  only  in  himself,  in  his  personality,  and 
so  man  imagines  at  first  that  the  good  which  he  wishes 
is  only  the  good  of  his  personality.  At  first  it  seems  to 
him  that  only  he  lives,  lives  truly.  The  life  of  other 
beings  does  not  at  all  present  itself  to  him  hke  his  own, 
—  it  presents  itself  to  him  only  as  a  semblance  of  life ; 
the  life  of  other  beings  man  knows  only  from  observation, 
and  only  through  observation  does  he  know  that  they  live. 
Of  the  life  of  other  beings  man  knows  when  he  wants 
to  think  of  them ;  but  of  himself  he  knows  at  all  times, 
and  so  each  man  sees  his  own  life  only  as  the  real  life. 
The  life  of  other  beings,  which  surround  him,  presents 
itself  to  him  only  as  one  of  the  conditions  of  his  exist- 
ence. If  he  does  not  wish  others  any  evil,  he  refrains 
from  doing  so  because  the  sight  of  the  sufferings  of  others 
impairs  his  welfare.  If  he  wishes  others  well,  he  does 
not  do  so  in  the  same  way  as  to  himself,  —  not  that  he 
whom  he  wishes  well  may  fare  well,  but  that  the  good  of 
the  other  beings  may  increase  the  good  of  his  own  life. 
What  is  important  and  necessary  for  man  is  the  good  in 
that  life  which  he  feels  his  own,  that  is,  his  good. 

239 


240  ON   LIFE 

Now,  while  striving  to  attain  his  good,  man  observes 
that  this  good  depends  on  other  beings,  and,  observing 
these  other  beings,  he  sees  that  all  of  them  —  both  men 
and  animals  —  have  precisely  the  same  conception  of  life 
which  he  has.  Each  of  these  beings,  like  him,  feels  only 
its  own  life  and  its  own  good,  and  regards  only  its  own 
life  as  important  and  real,  and  the  life  of  all  the  other 
beings  only  as  a  means  for  its  own  good.  Man  sees  that 
each  of  the  living  beings  must  be  prepared,  like  himself, 
for  the  sake  of  its  little  good,  to  deprive  of  a  greater  good 
and  even  of  life  all  the  other  beings,  and  among  them 
him,  as  a  reasoning  man.  Having  comprehended  this,  man 
involuntarily  reflects  that  if  this  is  so,  —  and  he  knows 
that  it  is  indubitably  so,  —  not  one  being,  and  not  a 
dozen  beings,  but  all  the  endless  creatures  of  the  world 
are  prepared,  each  for  the  attainment  of  its  own  good,  at 
any  moment  to  destroy  him,  for  whom  alone  life  exists. 
Having  comprehended  this,  man  sees  that  his  personal 
good,  in  which  alone  he  understands  his  life,  is  not  only 
not  easy  of  acquisition,  but  will  certainly  be  taken  from 
him. 

The  longer  a  man  lives,  the  more  this  reflection  is  con- 
firmed by  experience,  and  he  sees  that  the  life  of  the 
world,  in  which  he  takes  part,  and  which  is  composed  of 
interrelated  individuals  that  wish  to  destroy  and  devour 
one  another,  not  only  cannot  be  a  good  for  him,  but  cer- 
tainly is  a  great  evil. 

More  than  this :  even  if  a  man  is  placed  in  such 
favourable  cond'tions  that  he  can  successfully  struggle 
against  other  individuals,  without  fearing  for  himself, 
reason  and  experience  will  show  him  very  soon  that  even 
those  semblances  of  good  which  he  snatches  away  from 
life,  in  the  form  of  enjoyments  of  personality,  are  not  any 
good,  but,  as  it  were,  only  samples  of  good,  given  to  him 
solely  that  he  may  the  more  sensibly  feel  the  sufferings 
which  are  always  connected  with  the  enjoyments.     The 


ON    LIFE  241 

longer  a  man  lives,  the  more  clearly  does  he  see  that  the 
enjoyments  grow  less  and  less,  and  the  ennui,  satiety, 
labours,  and  sufferings  more  and  more. 

More  than  this  :  as  he  begins  to  experience  a  weakening 
of  his  forces  and  diseases,  and  contemplates  the  sickness, 
old  age,  and  death  of  other  men,  he  cannot  fail  to  observe 
that  his  own  existence,  in  which  alone  he  feels  real,  full 
life,  is  with  every  hour,  with  every  motion  approacliing 
debility,  old  age,  and  death ;  that  his  hfe,  in  addition  to 
being  subject  to  thousands  of  casualties  of  destruction  by 
other  beings  that  are  struggling  with  him,  and  to  ever 
increasing  sufferings,  by  its  very  essence  is  only  an  un- 
ceasing approach  to  death,  to  that  condition  in  which, 
together  with  the  life  of  the  individual,  there  will  cer- 
tainly be  destroyed  every  possibiUty  of  any  good  of  per- 
sonality whatsoever.  Man  sees  that  lie,  his  personahty,  — 
that  in  which  alone  he  feels  Hfe,  —  does  nothing  but 
struggle  against  what  it  is  impossible  to  struggle  against, 
against  the  whole  world ;  that  he  is  seeking  enjoyments 
which  give  only  a  semblance  of  good  and  always  end  in 
suffering,  and  wishes  to  retain  life,  which  it  is  impossible 
to  retain.  He  sees  that  he  himself,  his  personality,  —  that 
for  which  alone  he  wishes  the  good  and  life,  —  can  have 
neither  good  nor  life.  And  that  which  he  wishes  to  have, 
the  good  and  life,  is  possessed  only  by  those  beings,  for- 
eign to  him,  whom  he  does  not  feel  and  cannot  feel,  and 
of  whose  existence  he  neither  can  nor  wishes  to  know. 

What  is  most  important  to  him  and  what  alone  he  needs, 
what,  as  he  thinks,  lives  the  only  real  life,  his  personality, 
will  perish  and  be  bones  and  worms,  —  not  he ;  and  what 
he  does  not  need  and  is  of  no  importance  to  him,  what  he 
does  not  feel  as  living,  all  that  world  of  struggling  and 
alternating  beings,  is  the  real  Hfe,  and  will  remain  and  live 
for  ever.  Thus  the  only  Hfe  of  which  man  is  conscious, 
for  which  all  his  activity  takes  place,  turns  out  to  be  de- 
lusive and  impossible,  while  the  life  outside  him,  which 


242  ON   LIFE 

he  does  not  love  or  feel,  and  which  is  unknown  to  him, 
is  the  one  true  life. 

Only  what  he  does  not  feel  has  those  properties  which 
he  would  like  to  have.  And  this  is  not  something  which 
so  presents  itself  to  man  in  the  bad  moments  of  his  gloomy 
mood,  it  is  not  a  conception  without  which  one  can  get 
along,  but,  on  the  contrary,  such  an  obvious,  indubitable 
truth  that,  as  soon  as  this  thought  strikes  a  man,  or  is 
exx-)lained  to  him  by  others,  he  never  gets  rid  of  it,  and 
will  never  eradicate  it  from  his  consciousness. 


IL 

THE  CONTRADICTION  OF  LIFE  HAS  BEEN  RECOGNIZED  BY 
MEN  SINCE  REMOTE  ANTIQUITY.  THE  ENLIGHTENERS 
OF  HUMANITY  HAVE  REVEALED  TO  MEN  THE  DEFI- 
NITIONS OF  LIFE,  WHICH  SOLVE  THIS  INTERNAL  CON- 
TRADICTION, BUT  THE  PHARISEES  AND  THE  SCRIBES 
CONCEAL    THEM    FROM    MEN 

The  sole  aim  of  life,  as  it  first  presents  itself  to  man, 
is  the  good  of  his  personality,  but  there  can  be  no  good 
for  the  personality ;  even  if  there  were  anything  in  life 
that  resembled  the  good,  life,  in  which  alone  the  good 
would  be  possible,  the  life  of  the  personality,  by  every 
motion,  every  breath,  is  irresistibly  drawn  to  sufferings, 
to  evil,  to  death,  to  annihilation. 

This  is  so  obvious  and  so  clear  that  every  thinking  man, 
whether  he  be  young  or  old,  cultured  or  uneducated,  sees 
it.  This  reflection  is  so  simple  and  so  natural  that  it  pre- 
sents itself  to  every  rational  man,  and  has  been  known  to 
humanity  since  remote  antiquity. 

"  The  life  of  man,  as  an  individual  striving  only  after 
its  good,  amidst  an  endless  number  of  similar  individuals, 
which  destroy  one  another  and  themselves,  is  evil  and 
senseless,- and  the  true  life  cannot  be  such."  Thus  has 
man  said  to  himself  since  antiquity,  and  this  internal 
contradiction  of  man's  life  has  with  extraordinary  force  and 
clearness  been  expressed  by  Hindoo,  Chinese,  Egyptian, 
Greek,  and  Hebrew  sages  ;  and  since  antiquity  man's  mind 
has  been  directed  to  the  cognition  of  such  a  good  as  would 
not  be  destroyed  by  the  struggle  of  the  beings  among  them- 

243 


244  ON   LIFE 

selves,  by  sufferings,  and  by  death.  The  whole  progress  of 
humanity,  ever  since  we  know  its  hfe,  consists  in  the  ever 
growing  elucidation  of  this  good  of  man,  which  is  not  im- 
paired by  struggle,  suffering,  and  death. 

Since  most  remote  times  and  among  the  different  na- 
tions, the  great  teachers  of  humanity  have  revealed  to  men 
ever  clearer  definitions  of  life,  which  solve  its  internal  con- 
tradiction, and  have  pointed  out  to  them  the  true  good  and 
the  true  life  that  are  proper  for  man.  Since  the  position 
of  men  in  the  world  is  the  same  for  all  men,  and,  therefore, 
the  contradiction  between  his  striving  after  his  personal 
good  and  the  consciousness  of  its  impossibility  is  the  same 
also,  all  the  definitions  of  the  true  good  and,  therefore,  of 
the  true  life,  as  revealed  to  men  by  the  greatest  minds 
of  humanity,  are  by  their  essence  the  same. 

"  Life  is  the  dissemination  of  that  Hght  which  came 
down  from  heaven  for  the  good  of  men,"  Confucius  said, 
six  hundred  years  before  Christ. 

"  Life  is  a  wandering  and  perfecting  of  the  souls  at- 
taining a  greater  and  ever  greater  good,"  said  the  Brah- 
mins of  about  the  same  time. 

"  Life  is  self-renunciation  for  the  sake  of  attaining  bliss- 
ful Nirvana,"  said  Buddha,  a  contemporary  of  Confucius. 

"  Life  is  the  path  of  humility  and  abasement  for  the 
sake  of  attaining  the  good,"  said  Lao-tse,  another  con- 
temporary of  Confucius. 

"  Life  is  that  which  God  blew  into  the  nostrils  of  man, 
in  order  that  he,  fulfiUing  the  law,  might  attain  the  good," 
says  the  Jewish  wisdom. 

"  Life  is  subjection  to  reason,  which  gives  men  the 
good,"  said  the  Stoics. 

"  Life  is  love  of  God  and  of  our  neighbour,  which  gives 
man  the  good,"  said  Christ,  including  all  the  former  defi- 
nitions into  his  own. 

Such  are  the  definitions  of  life,  which,  pointing  out  to 
men  the  true,  indestructible  good  in  the  place  of  the  false 


ON   LIFE  245 

and  impossible  good  of  personality,  have  thousands  of 
years  before  us  solved  the  contradiction  of  human  life,  and 
given  a  rational  meaning  to  it.  We  may  fail  to  agree 
with  these  definitions  of  hfe ;  we  may  assume  that  these 
definitions  can  be  expressed  more  exactly  and  more 
clearly,  but  we  cannot  help  seeing  that  these  definitions 
are  such  that  the  recognition  of  them,  destroying  the  con- 
tradiction of  life  and  putting  in  place  of  the  striving  after 
the  unattainable  good  of  personality  another  striving,  — 
after  the  good  which  is  not  destroyed  by  suffering  and 
death,  —  gives  a  rational  meaning  to  life.  We  cannot 
help  seeing  that  these  definitions,  being  theoretically  cor- 
rect, are  also  confirmed  by  the  experience  of  life,  and  that 
millions  and  millions  of  people,  who  have  recognized  such 
definitions  of  life,  have  in  fact  shown  the  possibility  of 
substituting  for  the  striving  after  the  good  of  the  person- 
ality the  other  striving  after  the  good  which  is  not  im- 
paired by  suffering  and  by  death. 

But  besides  these  men,  who  have  comprehended  the 
definitions  of  life,  as  revealed  to  men  by  the  great  en- 
lighteners  of  humanity,  and  who  have  lived  by  it,  there 
has  always  existed  a  large  majority  of  men,  who  at  a 
given  period  of  life,  and  at  times  during  their  whole  life, 
have  lived  nothing  but  an  animal  life,  not  only  failing  to 
understand  those  definitions  w^hich  serve  as  a  solution 
of  the  contradiction  of  human  life,  but  not  even  seeing 
that  contradiction  which  they  solve.  There  have  always 
been  men  among  them  who,  on  account  of  their  external, 
exclusive  position,  have  considered  themselves  called  to 
guide  humanity,  and,  themselves  failing  to  comprehend 
the  meaning  of  human  life,  have  taught  other  men  the  life 
which  they  do  not  understand,  namely,  that  human  life  is 
nothing  but  personal  existence. 

Such  false  teachers  have  existed  at  all  times  and  exist 
even  at  present.  They  profess  in  words  the  teachings  of 
those  eulighteuers  of  humanity,  in  whose  traditions  they 


246  ON   LIFE 

have  been  educated,  but,  failing  to  comprehend  their 
rational  meaning,  they  turn  these  doctrines  into  supernat- 
ural revelations  of  the  past  and  the  future  Hfe  of  men  and 
demand  only  the  execution  of  rites.  This  is  the  teaching 
of  the  Pharisees  in  the  broadest  sense,  that  is,  of  men  who 
teach  that  the  life  which  is  in  itself  irrational  may  be 
mended  by  faith  in  another  life,  which  is  obtained  by  the 
execution  of  external  rites. 

Others,  who  do  not  recognize  the  possibihty  of  any 
other  than  the  visible  life,  deny  all  miracles  and  every- 
thing supernatural,  and  boldly  assert  that  man's  life  is 
nothing  but  his  animal  existence  from  his  birth  to  his 
death.  It  is  the  teaching  of  the  scribes,  of  men  who 
teach  that  in  the  life  of  man,  as  of  an  animal,  there  is 
nothing  irrational. 

The  two  classes  of  false  teachers  have  always  waged  war 
among  themselves,  though  the  doctrines  of  either  class  are 
based  on  the  same  gross  understanding  of  the  fundamental 
contradiction  of  human  life.  Both  doctrines  hold  sway 
in  our  world  and,  maldng  war  on  one  another,  fill  the 
world  with  their  disputes,  thus  couceahng  from  men  those 
definitions  of  life  which  reveal  the  path  to  the  true  good 
of  men,  which  were  given  humanity  thousands  of  years  ago. 

The  Pharisees,  by  not  understanding  the  definition  of 
hfe  which  is  given  to  men  by  those  teachers  in  the  tradi- 
tions in  which  they  are  brought  up,  substitute  for  it  their 
false  interpretations  of  the  future  life,  and  at  the  same 
time  try  to  conceal  from  men  the  definitions  of  life  of  the 
other  enlighteners  of  humanity,  by  presenting  them  to 
their  disciples  in  their  grossest  and  most  cruel  distortion, 
hoping  in  this  way  to  support  the  exclusive  authority  of 
the  teaching  on  which  they  base  their  interpretations.^ 

1  The  unity  of  the  rational  meaning  of  the  definition  of  life  by  the 
other  enlighteners  of  humanity  does  not  present  itself  to  them  as 
the  best  proof  of  the  trufcii  of  their  teaching,  since  it  shatters  the  trust 
in  those  irrational  false  interpretations  which  they  substitute  for  the 
esseuce  of  the  teacMug.  —  Author'' s  Note* 


I 


ON   LIFE  247 

But  the  scribes,  who  do  not  even  suspect  in  the  Phari- 
saical teachings  those  rational  foundations  from  which 
they  arose,  deny  outright  all  the  doctrines  of  the  future 
life,  and  boldly  affirm  that  all  these  doctrines  have  no 
foundation  whatever,  and  are  only  survivals  of  coarse 
customs  of  ignorance,  and  that  the  progress  of  humanity 
consists  in  putting  no  questions  of  life  which  exceed  the 
limits  of  the  animal  existence  of  man. 


III. 

THE    DELUSIONS    OF    THE    SCRIBES 

How  wonderful!  The  fact  that  all  the  teachings  of 
the  great  minds  of  humanity  so  awed  men  by  their  great- 
ness that  rude  people  generally  ascribed  to  them  a 
supernatural  character  and  recognized  their  founders  as 
demigods,  —  which  serves  as  the  chief  token  of  the  im- 
portance of  these  teachings,  —  serves  for  the  scribes,  so 
they  think,  as  the  best  proof  of  the  irregularity  and  obso- 
leteness of  these  teachings.  The  fact  that  the  unimportant 
teachings  of  Aristotle,  Bacon,  Comte,  and  others  have 
always  remained  the  possession  of  a  small  number  of 
their  readers  and  admirers,  and  on  account  of  their 
falseness  never  could  have  influenced  the  masses,  and 
so  were  not  subjected  to  superstitious  distortions  and 
increments,  is  taken  as  a  proof  of  their  truth.  But  the 
teachings  of  the  Brahmins,  of  Buddha,  Zoroaster,  Lao-tse, 
Confucius,  Isaiah,  Christ,  are  regarded  as  superstitions  and 
delusions,  only  because  these  teachings  have  transformed 
the  lives  of  millions. 

They  are  not  in  the  least  troubled  by  the  fact  that  bil- 
lions of  people  have  lived  according  to  these  superstitions, 
because  even  in  their  distorted  form  they  give  men  an- 
swers to  the  questions  as  to  the  true  good  of  hfe,  and 
that  these  teachings  are  divided  up,  but  even  thus  serve 
as  the  basis  of  reasoning  of  the  best  men  of  all  ages,  while 
the  theories  which  are  acknowledged  by  the  scribes  are 
divided  by  them  alone,  are  always  subjects  of  dispute, 
and  often  do  not  survive  a  decade,  and  are  forgotten  as 
quickly  as  they  rise. 


ON    LIFE  249 

In  nothing  is  the  false  direction  of  the  science  which 
modern  society  follows  expressed  with  such  clearness  as 
in  the  place  which  in  society  is  given  to  the  teachings  of 
those  great  teachers  of  life,  by  which  humanity  has  lived 
and  formed  itself,  and  continues  to  live  and  form  itself. 
In  the  almanacs  it  says,  in  the  department  of  statistical 
data,  that  there  are  a  thousand  different  creeds,  which  are 
now  professed  by  the  inhabitants  of  the  globe.  In  these 
creeds  are  included  Brahminism,  Buddhism,  Confucianism, 
Taoism,  and  Christianity.  There  are  a  thousand  creeds,  and 
men  of  our  time  believe  this  statement  quite  sincerely. 
There  are  a  thousand  creeds,  and  they  are  all  nonsense,  so 
what  need  is  there  of  studying  them  ?  And  the  men  of 
our  time  consider  it  a  shame  if  they  do  not  know  the  last 
utterances  of  wisdom  of  Spencer,  Helmholtz,  and  others, 
but  of  the  Brahmins,  of  Buddha,  Confucius,  Lao-tse,  Epic- 
tetus,  Isaiah,  they  sometimes  know  the  names,  and  some- 
times they  do  not  know  even  that.  It  does  not  even 
occur  to  them  that  there  are  not  at  all  one  thousand 
creeds  in  our  day,  but  only  three,  —  the  Chinese,  the 
Hindoo,  and  the  Judao-Christian  (with  its  outgrowth, 
Mohammedanism),  and  that  the  books  of  these  religious 
may  be  bought  for  five  roubles  and  read  in  two  weeks, 
and  that  in  these  books,  by  which  all  humanity,  with  the 
exception  of  seven  per  cent,  of  almost  unknown  people, 
has  lived,  is  contained  aU  the  wisdom  of  man,  all  that 
which  has  made  humanity  such  as  it  is. 

But  it  is  not  merely  the  masses  that  do  not  know  these 
teachings :  the  learned  do  not  know  them,  if  they  do  not 
happen  to  be  their  specialty ;  philosophers  by  profession 
do  not  consider  it  necessary  to  look  inside  these  books. 
What  sense  is  there  in  studying  those  men  who  have 
solved  that  which  to  a  rational  man  is  a  contradiction  of 
his  life,  and  who  have  determined  the  true  good  and  hfe 
of  men  ?  The  scribes,  who  do  not  understand  the  contra- 
diction which  forms  the  principle  of  a  rational  life,  affirm 


250  ON    LIFE 

boldly  that,  since  they  do  not  see  it,  there  is  no  contra- 
diction, and  that  the  life  of  man  is  only  his  animal 
existence. 

Men  who  see  understand  and  define  what  they  see  be- 
fore themselves :  a  blind  man  pokes  his  cane  in  front  of 
him,  and  affirms  that  there  is  nothing  but  what  the  feel 
of  his  cane  tells  him. 


rv. 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  SCRIBES  SUBSTITUTES  THE  VISIBLE 
PHENOMENA  OF  HIS  ANIMAL  EXISTENCE  FOR  THE 
CONCEPT  OF  THE  AVHOLE  LIFE  OF  MAN,  AND  FROM 
THESE  MAKES  HIS  DEDUCTIONS  AS  TO  THE  AIM  OF 
HIS    LIFE 

"  Life  is  what  is  going  on  in  the  living  being  from  its 
birth  to  its  death.  A  man,  a  dog,  a  horse,  is  born ;  each 
of  them  has  his  individual  body ;  this  individual  body 
lives,  and  then  dies ;  the  body  will  be  decomposed,  will 
enter  into  other  beings,  and  the  former  being  will  be  no 
more.  There  was  life,  and  life  has  come  to  an  end ;  the 
heart  beats,  the  lungs  breathe,  the  body  does  not  fall 
apart,  —  consequently  the  man,  the  dog,  the  horse,  lives  ; 
the  heart  stops  beating,  the  breath  ceases,  the  body  begins 
to  decompose,  —  death  has  come,  and  there  is  no  life. 
Life,  then,  is  that  which  takes  place  in  the  body  of 
man,  just  as  in  that  of  an  animal,  in  the  interval  between 
birth  and  death.     What  can  be  clearer  ?  " 

Thus  the  grossest,  most  ignorant  people,  who  have  just 
issued  from  the  animal  state,  have  always  looked  upon 
life.  In  our  day  the  teaching  of  the  scribes,  which  calls 
itself  science,  recognizes  this  same  gross,  primitive  concept 
of  life  as  the  only  true  one.  Making  use  of  all  those 
weapons  of  external  knowledge,  which  humanity  has  ac- 
quired, this  false  teaching  wants  systematically  to  lead 
men  back  into  that  darkness  of  ignorance,  from  which  it 
has  for  a  thousand  years  tried  with  so  much  effort  and 

labour  to  escape. 

251 


252  ON    LIFE 

"  We  cannot  define  life  in  our  consciousness,"  says  this 
doctrine.  "  We  lose  ourselves,  if  we  analyze  it  in  ourselves. 
That  concept  of  good,  the  striving  after  which  in  our  con- 
sciousness forms  our  life,  is  an  illusive  phantom,  and  life 
cannot  be  understood  in  this  consciousness.  To  under- 
stand hfe,  we  must  observe  its  manifestations,  as  the  mo- 
tion of  matter.  Only  from  these  observations  and  from 
the  laws  deduced  from  them  shall  we  find  the  law  of  hfe 
itself  and  the  law  of  the  life  of  man."  ^ 

And  so  the  false  teaching,  by  substituting  for  the  con- 
cept of  the  whole  hfe  of  man,  as  known  to  him  in  his 
consciousness,  its  visible  part,  —  animal  existence, — 
begins  to  study  these  visible  phenomena,  at  first  in  animal 
man,  then  in  the  animals  in  general,  then  in  the  plants, 
then  in  matter,  asserting  all  the  time  that  it  is  not  certain 
manifestations  of  life  that  are  studied,  but  hfe  itself. 
The  observations  are  so  complex,  so  diversified,  so  mixed, 
and  so  much  time  and  effort  is  wasted  on  them,  that  men 
by  degrees  forget  their  original  mistake  of  assuming  part 
of  the  subject  as  being  the  w^hole  subject,  and  are  fully 
convinced    that    the    study  of    the   visible  properties   of 

1  The  true  science,  which  knows  its  place  and,  therefore,  its  sub- 
ject, is  modest  and,  therefore,  powerful,  and  has  never  spoken  in  this 
way. 

The  science  of  physics  speaks  of  the  laws  and  relations  of  forces, 
without  troubling  itself  with  the  question  as  to  what  force  is,  or  try- 
ing to  explain  the  essence  of  force.  The  science  of  chemistry  speaks 
of  the  relations  of  matter,  without  troubling  itself  with  the  question 
what  matter  is,  or  trying  to  define  its  essence.  The  science  of  biology 
speaks  of  the  forms  of  life,  without  troubling  itself  with  the  question 
as  to  what  life  is,  or  trying  to  define  its  essence.  Force  and  matter 
and  life  are  accepted  by  the  true  sciences  not  as  objects  of  investi- 
gation, but  as  axiomatic  points  of  support,  which  are  taken  from 
other  iields  of  knowledge,  and  on  which  the  structure  of  each  separate 
science  is  reared.  Thus  true  science  looks  upon  the  subject,  and  this 
science  cannot  have  a  deleterious  influence  upon  the  masses,  turning 
them  toward  ignorance.  But  not  thus  does  the  falsely  reasoning 
science  look  upon  its  subject.  "  We  .study  matter  and  force  and  life  ; 
and  since  we  study  them,  we  can  know  them,"  they  say,  failing  to 
consider  that  they  are  not  studying  matter,  or  force,  or  life,  but  only 
their  relations  and  forms.  —  Author's  Note. 


ON   LIFE  253 

matter,  of  plants,  and  of  animals  is  the  study  of  life 
itself,  which  is  cognized  by  man  only  in  his  conscious- 
ness. 

What  takes  place  is  very  much  like  what  a  man  does 
who  points  to  a  shadow,  wishing  to  sustain  the  delusion 
in  which  his  spectators  are. 

"  Look  nowhere,"  says  the  demonstrator,  "  except  where 
the  reflections  appear,  and,  above  all,  do  not  look  at  the 
object  itself  :  there  is  no  object,  —  there  is  only  its  reflec- 
tion." 

The  same  is  done  by  the  science  of  the  scribes  of  our 
time,  which  pampers  the  vulgar  crowd,  when  it  views  life 
without  its  chief  definition,  the  striving  after  the  good, 
which  is  revealed  only  in  the  consciousness  of  man.^ 
Starting  directly  from  the  definition  of  life  independently 
of  the  striving  after  the  good,  the  false  science  observes 
the  ends  of  the  living  beings,  and,  finding  in  them  ends 
which  are  foreign  to  man,  ascribe  them  to  him. 

As  the  end  of  the  living  beings  there  presents  itself, 
with  such  an  external  observation,  the  preservation  of 
one's  personality,  the  preservation  of  species,  the  repro- 
duction of  one's  like,  and  the  struggle  for  existence,  and 
this  imaginary  end  of  life  is  foisted  upon  man. 

The  false  science,  taking  for  its  starting-point  the  obso- 
lete conception  of  life,  with  which  one  cannot  see  that 
contradiction  of  human  life,  which  forms  its  chief  prop- 
erty, —  this  so-called  science  in  its  last  deductions  arrives 
at  what  the  vulgar  majority  of  humanity  demands,  —  at 
the  recognition  of  the  possibility  of  good  for  the  individ- 
ual life  alone,  at  the  recognition  of  the  animal  existence 
alone  as  man's  good. 

The  false  science  goes  even  beyond  the  demands  of  the 
vulgar  crowd,  for  which  it  wants  to  find  an  explanation, 
—  it  arrives  at  the  affirmation  of  what  the  rational  con- 
sciousness   of    man    rejects    with    its    first     gleam    of 

1  See  first  appendix. 


254  ON   LIFE 

intelligence,  —  it  arrives  at  the  conclusion  that  the 
life  of  man,  as  of  any  animal,  consists  in  the  struggle 
for  the  existence  of  personahty,  of  the  race,  and  of  the 
species.^ 

1  See  second  appendix. 


V. 

THE  FALSE  TEACHINGS  OF  THE  PHARISEES  AND  OF  THE 
SCRIBES  DO  NOT  GIVE  ANY  EXPLANATIONS  OF  THE 
MEANING  OF  ACTUAL  LIFE,  NOR  ANY  GUIDANCE  IN 
IT  ;  AS  THE  ONLY  GUIDE  OF  LIFE  THERE  APPEARS 
THE  INERTIA  OF  LIFE,  WHICH  HAS  NO  RATIONAL 
EXPLANATION 

"  There  is  no  need  of  defining  life  :  everybody  knows  it. 
That  is  all,  and  so  let  us  live  ! "  say  men  in  their  delusion, 
being  supported  by  the  false  teachings.  And,  as  they  do 
not  know  what  life  and  its  good  is,  they  think  that  they 
live,  as  a  man  who  is  borne  by  the  waves  without  any 
special  direction  may  think  that  he  is  swimming  whither 
he  has  to  and  wishes  to  swim. 

A  child  is  born  in  need  or  in  luxury,  and  receives  an 
education  either  of  the  Pharisees  or  of  the  scribes.  For 
the  child,  for  the  youth,  there  does  not  yet  exist  the  con- 
tradiction of  hfe  and  the  question  about  it,  and  so  he 
needs  neither  the  explanation  of  the  Pharisees,  nor  that  of 
the  scribes,  and  they  cannot  guide  his  life.  He  learns 
only  by  the  example  of  men  who  hve  about  him,  and  this 
example,  both  of  the  Pharisees  and  of  the  scribes,  is  the 
same :  both  live  only  for  the  good  of  the  personal  life, 
and  teach  liim  the  same. 

If  his  parents  are  in  need,  he  learns  from  them  that  the 
aim  of  hfe  is  the  acquisition  of  more  bread  and  money, 
and  as  little  work  as  possible,  so  that  the  animal  person- 
ality may  fare  as  well  as  possible.  If  he  was  born  in 
luxury,  he  learns  that  the  aim  of  life  is  wealth  and  hon- 

255 


256  ON    LIFE 

ours,  so  that  one  may  pass  the  time  with  as  much  pleas- 
ure and  jollity  as  possible. 

All  the  knowledge  which  the  poor  man  acquires  is 
necessary  for  him,  so  that  he  may  be  able  to  improve  the 
welfare  of  his  personality.  All  the  knowledge  of  science 
and  of  the  arts  which  the  rich  man  acquires  is  neces- 
sary for  him  only  that  he  may  be  able  to  vanquish  ennui 
and  pass  the  time  pleasantly  The  longer  each  of  them 
lives,  the  more  strongly  does  the  reigning  view  of  the  men 
of  the  world  enter  his  flesh.  They  marry  and  raise  a 
family,  and  the  eagerness  for  acquiring  the  benefits  of  an 
animal  existence  is  intensified  by  the  justification  of  the 
family :  the  struggle  with  others  becomes  more  acute,  and 
there  is  established  the  habit  (inertia)  of  life  only  for  the 
good  of  the  personality. 

Even  if  a  doubt  as  to  the  rationality  of  such  a  life 
should  assail  either  the  poor  or  the  ricli  man ;  if  either 
shall  be  confronted  with  the  question.  For  what  purpose 
is  this  aimless  struggle  for  existence,  which  my  children 
will  continue,  or  for  what  purpose  is  this  illusive  chase 
after  enjoyments,  which  end  in  suffering  both  for  me  and 
my  children  ?  there  is  hardly  any  possibility  that  he  will 
find  out  those  definitions  of  life  which  have  long  ago  been 
given  to  humanity  by  its  great  teachers,  who  thousands  of 
years  ago  were  in  the  same  condition  as  he.  The  teach- 
ing of  tlie  Pharisees  and  of  the  scribes  screen  them  so 
firmly  that  only  very  few  succeed  in  seeing  them. 

Some,  the  Pharisees,  in  reply  to  the  question,  "  What  is 
this  miserable  life  for  ? "  say,  "  Life  is  miserable  and  has 
always  been  so,  and  must  always  be  so ;  the  good  of  life 
is  not  in  its  present,  but  in  its  past,  before  life,  and  in  its 
future,  after  life."  The  Brahmin,  and  the  Buddhist,  and 
the  Taoist,  and  the  Jewish,  and  the  Christian  Pharisees 
always  say  the  same.  "  The  present  life  is  an  evil,  and  the 
explanation  of  this  evil  is  in  the  past,  —  in  the  appear- 
ance of  the  world  and  of  man ;  but  the  correction  of  the 


ON    LIFE  267 

existing  evil  is  iu  Llie  future,  beyoud  the  grave.  Every- 
thing which  man  can  do  for  the  acquisition  of  the  good 
is  not  in  this  life,  but  in  the  future :  believe  in  the  teach- 
ing which  we  impart  to  you,  —  fulfil  the  rites  which  we 
prescribe." 

And  the  doubter,  seeing  in  the  lives  of  all  men  who  live 
for  their  personal  good,  and  in  the  lives  of  the  Pharisees 
who  hve  in  the  same  way,  the  untruth  of  this  explanation, 
and  not  grasping  the  meaning  of  their  answer,  simply  does 
not  believe  them,  and  turns  to  the  scribes. 

"  All  the  teachings  about  another  hfe  than  the  one 
which  we  see  in  the  animal  life  is  the  fruit  of  ignorance," 
say  the  scribes.  "  All  thy  doubts  in  the  rationality  of 
thy  life  are  idle  dreams.  The  life  of  the  worlds,  the 
earth,  the  man,  the  animal,  the  plant  has  its  laws,  and  we 
study  them  and  investigate  the  origin  of  the  worlds  and 
of  man,  of  the  animals  and  plants,  and  of  all  matter ;  we 
also  investigate  what  is  in  store  for  the  worlds,  when  the 
sun  cools  off,  and  so  forth,  and  what  has  been  and  will  be 
with  man  and  with  every  animal  and  plant.  We  can  show 
and  prove  that  everything  has  been  and  will  be,  as  we 
say ;  our  investigations,  besides  this,  cooperate  with  the 
improvement  of  man's  welfare.  But  of  thy  life,  with  thy 
striving  after  the  good,  we  cannot  tell  thee  anything, 
except  what  thou  knowest  without  us :  since  thou  livest, 
live  in  the  best  manner  possible." 

And  the  doubter,  having  received  no  answer  whatsoever 
to  his  question,  neither  from  the  one  nor  from  the  other, 
remains,  as  he  has  been,  without  any  guidance  in  life 
except  the  impulses  of  his  personality. 

Some  of  the  doubters,  saying  to  themselves,  according 
to  Pascal's  reflection,  "  What  if  there  is  truth  in  that  with 
which  the  Pharisees  threaten  us  for  the  non-performance 
of  their  injunctions  ? "  carry  out,  in  their  leisure  time,  all 
the  injunctions  of  the  Pharisees  ("  There  will  be  no  loss, 
and  the  gain  may  be  great "),  while  others,  agreeing  with 


258  ON   LIFE 

the  scribes,  deny  outright  any  other  life  and  all  religious 
rites,  and  say  to  themselves,  "  Not  I  alone,  but  all  men 
have  lived  in  this  manner,  —  what  will  be,  will  be." 
And  this  discrimination  gives  no  advantage  to  either  of 
them :  they  all  remain  without  an  explanation  as  to  the 
meaning  of  the  present  life. 

But  one  has  to  live. 

Human  life  is  a  series  of  acts  from  rising  to  going  to 
bed ;  every  day  a  man  has  to  choose  out  of  hundreds 
of  possible  acts  those  which  he  will  perform.  Neither 
the  teaching  of  the  Pharisees,  which  explains  the  myster- 
ies of  the  heavenly  life,  nor  the  teaching  of  the  scribes, 
which  investigates  the  origin  of  the  worlds  and  of  man, 
and  which  draws  its  conclusions  as  to  their  future  fate, 
furnishes  such  a  guide  for  his  acts.  And  yet  man  cannot 
live  without  a  guide  in  the  choice  of  his  acts,  and  so  he 
involuntarily  submits,  not  to  reason,  but  to  that  external 
guide  of  life,  which  has  always  existed  in  every  society  of 
men. 

This  guide  has  no  reasonable  explanation,  but  yet  it 
moves  an  enormous  majority  of  the  acts  of  all  men.  This 
guide  is  the  habit  of  hfe  of  societies  of  men,  which  governs 
men  the  more  powerfully  the  less  men  have  the  compre- 
hension of  the  meaning  of  life.  This  guide  cannot  be 
expressed  definitely,  because  it  is  composed  of  the  greatest 
variety  of  acts  and  works,  widely  different  in  time  and 
place.  It  is  caudles  on  the  little  boards  of  the  parents  for 
the  Chmese;  it  is  pilgrimages  to  certain  places  for  a 
Mohammedan  ;  it  is  a  certain  number  of  words  in  a  prayer 
for  a  Hindoo ;  it  is  loyalty  to  his  flag  and  the  honour  of 
the  uniform  for  a  soldier,  the  duel  for  a  man  of  the  world, 
the  vendetta  for  the  mountaineer ;  it  is  certain  food  for 
certain  days,  a  certain  education  of  one's  children ;  it  is 
visits,  a  certain  furnishing  of  the  apartments,  a  certain 
celebration  of  funerals,  births,  and  weddings  ;  it  is  an  end- 
less number  of  deeds  and  acts,  which  fill  the  whole  life. 


ON   LIFE  259 

It  is  what  is  called  decency,  custom,  but  most  frequently 
duty,  and  even  sacred  duty. 

Aud  it  is  to  this  guidance  that  the  majority  of  men  sub- 
mit, in  spite  of  the  explanations  of  the  Pharisees  and  the 
scribes.  All  about  him  and  ever  since  childhood  a  man 
sees  people  who  perform  these  acts  with  full  assurance 
and  external  solemnity,  and,  as  he  has  no  rational  expla- 
nation of  his  hfe,  he  not  only  begins  to  perform  such  acts, 
but  tries  to  ascribe  a  rational  meaning  to  these  acts.  He 
wants  to  believe  that  the  men  who  perform  these  acts 
have  an  explanation  as  to  why  and  for  what  purpose  they 
do  what  they  do.  And  so  he  begins  to  convince  himself 
that  these  acts  have  a  rational  meaning  and  that  the 
explanation  of  their  meaning,  though  not  known  to  him, 
is  known  to  others.  But  the  majority  of  other  men,  who 
themselves  lack  an  explanation  of  life,  are  in  precisely  the 
same  state  in  which  he  is.  The  only  reason  they  perform 
the  acts  is  that  they  think  that  others,  having  an  explana- 
tion of  these  acts,  demand  them  from  them.  Thus,  invol- 
untarily deceiving  one  another,  men  get  more  and  more 
accustomed  to  performing  acts  which  have  no  rational  ex- 
planation, and  even  to  ascribing  to  these  acts  a  certain 
mysterious,  incomprehensible  meaning.  The  less  they 
comprehend  the  meaning  of  the  acts  to  be  performed  by 
them  and  the  more  doubtful  these  acts  are  in  themselves, 
the  more  importance  do  they  ascribe  to  them,  and  the 
more  solemnly  do  they  perform  them. 

The  rich  man  and  the  poor  perform  what  they  see 
others  around  them  do,  and  these  acts  they  call  their 
duty,  their  sacred  duty,  quieting  themselves  with  the 
thought  that  that  which  has  been  done  for  so  long  a  time, 
by  so  great  a  number  of  men,  and  is  so  highly  esteemed 
by  them,  cannot  help  but  be  the  real  work  of  life.  And 
up  to  a  good  old  age,  up  to  death,  men  live,  trying 
to  assure  themselves  that,  if  they  themselves  do  not 
know  what   they   live  for,  others  do  know  it,  —  those 


260  ON    LIFE 

others  who  know  it  just  as  little  as  those  who  depend  on 
them. 

New  men  come  into  existence,  are  bom,  grow  up,  and, 
looking  at  this  hubbub  of  existence,  called  life,  in  which 
gray-haired,  respected,  revered  old  men  take  part,  assure 
themselves  that  this  senseless  bustle  is  life,  and  that  there 
is  no  other,  and  go  away,  having  crowded  a  bit  at  its  gate. 
Even  so  a  man  who  has  never  seen  an  assembly,  upon 
noticing  a  crowding,  noisy,  animated  throng  at  the  en- 
trance, and  deciding  that  this  is  that  assembly,  allows 
himself  to  be  jostled  at  the  door  and  returns  home  with 
crushed  sides,  and  with  the  full  assurance  that  he  was  in 
the  assembly. 

We  cut  through  mountains,  fly  around  the  world ; 
electricity,  microscopes,  telephones,  wars,  parliament,  phil- 
anthropy, the  struggle  of  parties,  universities,  learned 
societies,  museums,  —  is  not  all  that  life  ? 

All  the  complex  seething  activity  of  men,  with  their 
commerce,  wars,  roads  of  communication,  science,  arts,  is 
for  the  greater  part  only  a  crush  of  a  senseless  crowd 
at  the  gate  of  life. 


VL 

THE   DOUBLING    OF    THE   CONSCIOUSNESS   IN    THE    MEN    OF 

OUR  WORLD 

"  But  verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you.  The  time  is  coming 
and  is  already  at  hand  when  the  dead  shall  hear  the  voice 
of  the  Son  of  God  and  hearing  shall  come  to  life."  And 
this  time  is  coming.  No  matter  how  much  a  man  may 
assure  himself,  and  no  matter  how  much  others  may  as- 
sure him,  that  life  can  be  good  and  rational  only  beyond 
the  grave,  or  that  nothing  but  the  personal  life  can  be  good 
and  rational,  —  man  cannot  believe  this.  Man  has  in  the 
depth  of  his  soul  an  ineffaceable  demand  that  his  life 
should  be  a  good  and  should  have  a  rational  meaning, 
and  life,  which  has  before  itself  no  other  aim  than  the 
life  after  the  grave  or  the  impossible  good  of  the  person- 
ality, is  an  evil  and  an  absurdity. 

"  To  live  for  the  future  life  ? "  man  says  to  himself. 
"  But  if  that  life,  that  only  sample  of  life  which  I  know, 
my  present  life,  is  to  be  meaningless,  this  not  only  fails 
to  confirm  me  in  the  belief  that  another,  rational  life  is 
possible,  but,  on  the  contrary,  convinces  me  that  life  is  in 
its  essence  meaningless,  and  that  there  can  be  no  other 
life  but  the  meaningless. 

"  To  live  for  myself  ?  But  my  personal  life  is  an  evil 
and  an  absurdity.  To  live  for  my  family  ?  For  the 
common  weal,  for  my  country,  for  humanity  even  ?  But  ■ 
if  the  life  of  my  personality  is  wretched  and  meaningless, 
the  life  of  every  other  human  personality  is  also  meaning- 
less, and  so  an  endless  number  of  collected  absurd  and 

irrational  personalities  will  not  form  one  single  blessed 

261 


262  ON   LIFE 

and  rational  life.  To  live  for  myself,  not  knowing  why, 
and  doing  what  others  are  doing  ?  But  I  know  that  others, 
like  myself,  do  not  know  themselves  why  they  do  what 
they  do." 

The  time  comes  when  the  rational  consciousness  out- 
grows the  false  teachings,  and  man  stops  amidst  hfe  and 
demands  an  explanation.^ 

Only  such  rare  person  as  has  no  relations  with  men  of 
other  manners  of  life,  or  a  man  who  is  constantly  occu- 
pied in  a  tense  battle  with  Nature  for  the  purpose  of  sup- 
porting his  bodily  existence,  can  believe  in  this,  that  the 
execution  of  those  senseless  deeds,  which  he  calls  his  duty, 
can  be  a  duty  of  hfe  peculiar  to  him. 

The  time  is  at  hand  and  already  here,  when  the  decep- 
tion which  proclaims  as  life  the  verbal  negation  of  this 
life  for  the  purpose  of  preparing  for  oneself  a  future  life 
and  the  acknowledgment  of  the  personal  animal  exist- 
ence, and  which  calls  the  so-called  duty  the  work  of  hfe, 
—  when  this  deception  shall  become  clear  for  the  majority 
of  men,  and  it  is  only  people  who  are  crushed  by  want  or 
dulled  by  a  hfe  of  lust  that  can  exist,  without  feeling  the 
senselessness  and  wretchedness  of  their  existence. 

Men  awake  ever  more  frequently  to  the  rational  con- 
sciousness, come  to  life  in  their  graves,  and  the  funda- 
mental contradiction  of  the  human  life,  in  spite  of  all  the 
efforts  of  men  to  conceal  this  from  themselves,  stands  out 
before  the  majority  of  men  with  terrible  force  and 
clearness. 

"  My  whole  life  is  a  desire  for  good  for  myself,"  says 
the  awakened  man,  "  but  my  reason  tells  me  that  this  good 
cannot  exist  for  me,  and  that,  no  matter  what  I  may  do 
and  what  I  may  attain,  everything  will  end  in  one  and 
the  same,  in  sufferings  and  death,  —  in  destruction.  I 
want  the  good,  I  want  hfe,  I  want  a  rational  meaning, 
but  in  me  and  in  everything  which  surrounds  me  there  is 

1  See  third  appendix. 


ON  LIFB  263 

evil,  d^th,  absurdity.     What  shall  I  do  ?     How  can  I 
live  ? "     And  there  is  no  answer. 

A  man  looks  about  him  and  seeks  an  answer  for  his 
question,  and  does  not  find  it.  He  will  find  about  him 
teachings  that  will  answer  questions  which  he  has  not  put 
to  himself,  but  in  the  world  that  surrounds  him  there  is 
no  answer  to  the  question  which  he  has  put  to  himself. 
There  is  but  the  bustle  of  men,  who,  without  knowing 
why,  are  performing  acts  which  others  are  performing, 
themselves  not  knowing  why. 

All  live  as  though  they  were  not  conscious  of  the 
wretchedness  of  their  situation  and  the  absurdity  of  their 
activity.  "  Either  they  are  senseless,  or  /  am,"  the  awakened 
'man  says  to  himself.  "  But  all  men  cannot  be  senseless, 
consequently  it  is  I  who  am  senseless.  But  no,  —  that 
rational  ego  which  tells  me  this  cannot  be  senseless.  Let 
it  be  one  against  the  whole  world,  I  cannot  help  but 
believe  it." 

And  man  recognizes  himself  alone  in  the  whole  world 
with  those  terrible  questions  which  tear  his  soul  asunder. 
And  one  has  to  live. 

One  ego,  his  personality,  commands  him  to  live. 

The  other  ego,  his  reason,  says :  "  You  cannot  live." 

Man  feels  that  he  has  doubled.  And  this  doubling 
lacerates  his  heart  in  an  agonizing  manner. 

And  it  seems  to  him  that  his  reason  is  the  cause  of  this 
doubling  and  suffering. 

Keason,  that  highest  quality  of  man,  which  is  i^cessary 
for  his  life,  which,  amidst  the  forces  of  Nature  that  des- 
troy him,  gives  him,  the  naked  and  helpless  man,  the 
means  both  for  existence  and  for  enjoyment,  —  that  same 
quality  poisons  his  life. 

In  all  the  surrounding  world,  amidst  living  creatures, 
the  qualities  that  are  peculiar  to  these  beings  are  necessary 
for  them,  are  common  to  them  all,  and  cooperate  with  their 
good.    Plants,  insects,  animals,  submitting  to  their  law, 


264 


ON    LIFE 


live  a  blessed,  joyful,  calm  life.  And  suddenly  this 
highest  quality  of  man's  nature  produces  in  him  such  a 
painful  state  that  frequently  —  more  and  more  frequently 
of  late  —  man  cuts  the  Gordian  knot  of  his  life,  and  kills 
himself,  only  to  free  himself  from  the  painful  internal  con- 
tradiction which  is  produced  by  a  rational  consciousness, 
and  which  in  our  time  has  been  carried  to  the  highest 
degree  of  tension. 


VII. 

THE    DOUBLING    OF    THE    CONSCIOUSNESS    IS    DUE    TO    CON- 
FUSING   THE    ANIMAL    LIFE    WITH    THE    HUMAN    LIFE 

It  seems  to  man  that  the  rational  consciousness  awak- 
ened in  him  breaks  and  arrests  his  Hfe  only  because  he 
recognizes  that  to  be  his  life  which  has  not  been,  and  can- 
not be,  his  life. 

Having  been  educated  and  brought  up  in  the  false 
teachings  of  our  world,  which  confirm  him  in  his  convic- 
tion that  his  life  is  nothing  but  his  personal  existence, 
which  began  with  his  birth,  it  seems  to  man  that  he  lived 
when  he  was  a  babe,  a  child ;  then  it  seems  to  him  that 
he  lived  without  a  break,  as  a  youth  and  a  full-grown  man. 
He  lived,  as  it  seems  to  him,  a  very  long  time  ago,  and 
has  lived  all  the  time  without  a  break,  and  suddenly 
reached  the  time  when  it  became  indubitably  clear  to 
him  that  it  was  impossible  to  live  as  he  had  lived 
before,  and  that  his  life  has  been  arrested  and  is  break- 
ing up. 

The  false  teaching  has  confirmed  him  in  the  idea  that 
his  life  is  the  period  of  time  from  his  birth  to  his  death, 
and,  looking  at  the  visible  life  of  the  animals,  he  confused 
the  idea  of  the  visible  life  with  his  consciousness,  and 
came  to  the  absolute  conviction  that  this  visible  life  is 
his  life. 

The  awakened  rational  consciousness,  in  making  de- 
mands on  him  which  cannot  be  satisfied  for  the  animal 
life,  shows  him  the  faultiness  of  his  concept  of  life ;  but 
the  false  teaching  which  has  penetrated  him  keeps  him 

265 


266  ON   LIFE 

from  recognizing  his  mistake :  he  cannot  renounce  his 
concept  of  life  as  an  animal  existence,  and  it  seems  to 
him  that  his  life  has  come  to  a  stop  through  the  awaken- 
ing of  his  rational  consciousness.  But  that  which  he 
calls  his  life,  which  to  him  seems  to  be  arrested,  has  never 
existed.  What  he  calls  his  life,  his  existence  from  birth, 
never  was  his  hfe ;  his  idea  that  he  has  lived  all  the  time 
from  his  birth  to  the  present  moment  is  a  deception  of 
consciousness,  similar  to  the  deception  of  consciousness 
in  a  dream :  up  to  the  waking  there  were  no  dreams,  — 
they  arose  all  at  the  moment  of  waking.  Up  to  the 
waking  of  the  rational  consciousness  there  was  no  hfe: 
the  concept  of  the  past  life  formed  itself  at  the  waking  of 
the  rational  consciousness. 

Man  lived  like  an  animal  during  his  childhood,  and 
knew  nothing  of  Hfe.  If  a  man  lived  ten  months,  he 
would  not  know  anything  of  his  own,  nor  of  any  other 
life :  he  would  know  as  little  as  if  he  died  in  his  mother's 
womb.  And  not  only  a  babe,  but  also  a  demented  gi^own 
man  and  a  complete  idiot  cannot  know  that  they  live  and 
that  other  beings  live.  And  so  they  have  no  human 
Hfe. 

Human  Hfe  begins  only  with  the  manifestation  of 
rational  consciousness,  which  at  the  same  time  reveals 
to  a  man  his  life,  in  the  present  and  in  the  past,  and  the 
lives  of  other  entities,  and  everything  which  inevitably 
results  from  the  relations  of  these  entities,  —  sufferings 
and  death,  —  precisely  what  produces  in  him  the  negation 
of  the  good  of  the  personal  life  and  the  contradiction 
which,  as  he  thinks,  arrests  his  life, 

Man  wants  to  define  his  life  in  time,  as  he  defines 
all  visible  existence  outside  of  him,  and  suddenly  there 
awakens  in  him  life,  which  does  not  coincide  with  the 
time  of  his  carnal  birth,  and  he  docs  not  want  to  believe 
that  that  which  is  not  defined  in  time  can  be  life.  But 
no  matter  how  much  man  may  seek  iu  time  that  point 


ON    LIFE  267 

from  which  he  may  count  the  begianing  of  his  rational 
life,  he  will  never  find  it.^ 

In  his  recollections  he  will  never  find  this  point,  this 
beginning  of  his  rational  consciousness.  It  seems  to  him 
that  the  rational  consciousness  has  always  existed  in  him. 
If  he  does  find  something  resembling  a  beginning  of  con- 
sciousness, he  does  not  find  it  in  his  carnal  birth,  but  in  a 
sphere  which  has  nothing  in  common  with  his  carnal  birth. 
He  cognizes  his  rational  consciousness  quite  differently 
from  what  his  carnal  birth  appears  to  him  to  be.  Asking 
himself  about  the  origin  of  his  rational  consciousness,  man 
never  imagines  that,  as  a  rational  being,  he  is  the  son  of 
his  father  and  mother,  the  grandson  of  his  grandparents, 
who  were  born  in  such  and  such  a  year ;  he  is  conscious, 
not  exactly  of  being  a  son,  but  of  being  united  in  one 
with  the  consciousness  of  rational  beings  most  foreign  to 
him  in  time  and  space,  who  may  have  lived  thousands 
of  years  before  and  at  the  other  end  of  the  world.  In  his 
rational  consciousness  man  does  not  even  see  any  origin 
of  himself,  but  is  conscious  of  his  extra-temporal  and 
extra-spatial  union  with  other  rational  beings,  so  that 
they  enter  into  him   and   he   into   them.     This  rational 

1  Nothing  is  more  common  than  to  hear  discussions  about  the 
inception  and  evolution  of  human  life  and  of  life  in  general  in  time. 
People  who  discuss  in  this  manner  imagine  that  they  are  standing  on 
the  firmest  ground  of  reality,  and  yet  there  is  nothing  more  fantastic 
than  the  discussions  about  the  evolution  of  life  in  time.  These  dis- 
cussions are  like  what  a  man  would  do,  who,  wishing  to  measure  a 
line,  would  not  lay  off  the  measure  from  the  one  known  point  on 
which  he  is  standing,  but  would  select  imaginary  points  at  various 
indefinite  distances  from  himself,  and  would  begin  to  measure  from 
them  toward  himself.  Do  not  people  do  the  same,  when  they  discuss 
the  inception  and  evolution  of  life  in  man  ?  Indeed,  where  on  that 
endless  line,  which  represents  the  evolution  of  human  life  in  the  past, 
are  we  to  take  that  arbitrary  point  from  which  we  may  begin  the 
fantastic  history  of  the  evolution  of  this  life  ?  Is  it  in  the  birth  or 
inception  of  the  child,  or  of  his  parents,  or  still  farther  back,  in  the 
primeval  animal  and  protoplasm,  in  the  first  bit  broken  loose  from 
the  sun  ?  All  these  discussions  will  be  most  arbitrary  fancies,  — 
naensmation  without  a  measure.  — Author's  Note. 


268  ON   LIFE 

consciousness,  which  is  awakened  in  man,  arrests,  as  it 
were,  that  semblance  of  life  which  erring  men  regard  as 
life :  to  the  erring  men  it  seems  that  their  life  is  arrested 
at  the  very  moment  when  it  awakens. 


VIII. 

THERE    IS    NO    DOUBLING    AND    NO   CONTRADICTION  :    THEY 
APPEAR    ONLY    WITH    THE    FALSE    TEACHING 

It  is  only  the  false  teaching  about  the  human  life 
being  the  animal  existence  from  birth  to  death,  in  which 
men  are  brought  up  and  maintained,  that  produces  the 
agonizing  condition  of  doubling,  into  which  men  enter  at 
the  manifestation  of  their  rational  consciousness  in  them. 

To  a  man  who  is  under  this  delusion  it  appears  that  life 
is  doubled  in  him. 

Man  knows  that  his  life  is  one,  and  yet  he  feels  it  as 
two.  Eolling  a  small  ball  with  the  two  fingers  crossed 
over  one  another,  one  feels  it  to  be  two.  Something  sim- 
ilar takes  place  with  a  man  who  has  acquired  a  wrong 
concept  of  life. 

Man's  reason  is  falsely  directed :  he  has  been  taught  to 
recognize  as  life  nothing  but  his  carnal  personal  existence, 
which  cannot  be  life. 

With  such  a  false  concept  of  an  imaginary  life  he  has 
looked  upon  life,  and  has  come  to  see  two  lives :  the  one, 
as  he  has  imagined  it  to  be,  and  the  other  which  really  is. 

To  such  a  man  it  seems  that  the  negation  by  the 
rational  consciousness  of  the  good  of  the  personal  exist- 
ence and  the  demand  of  another  good  is  something 
morbid  and  unnatural. 

But  to  a  man,  as  a  rational  being,  the  negation  of  the 
possibility  of  the  personal  good  and  of  l;ife  is  the  inevita- 
ble consequence  of  the  conditions  of  the  personal  life 
and  of  the  quality  of  the  rational  consciousness,  which  is 

269 


270 


ON   LIFE 


connected  with  it.  The  negation  of  the  good  and  of  the 
life  of  personahty  is  for  the  rational  being  just  as  natural 
a  quality  of  his  life  as  it  is  natural  for  a  bird  to  fly  with 
its  wings,  and  not  to  run  with  its  feet.  But  if  a  feathered 
fledgeling  runs  with  its  feet,  it  does  not  prove  that  flying 
is  not  peculiar  to  it.  If  we  see  outside  of  ourselves  men 
with  a  dormant  consciousness,  who  assume  that  their  life 
hes  in  the  good  of  personality,  tliis  does  not  prove  that  it 
is  improper  for  a  man  to  live  a  rational  life.  The  awaken- 
ing of  man  to  his  true  life,  peculiar  to  him,  takes  place 
in  our  world  with  such  painful  tension,  only  because  the 
false  teaching  of  the  world  tries  to  convince  men  that  the 
phantom  of  life  is  life  itself,  and  that  the  manifestation  of 
the  true  hfe  is  a  violation  of  it. 

What  happens  with  men  in  our  world  who  enter  into 
the  true  life  is  very  much  Hke  what  would  happen  with 
a  girl,  from  whom  the  properties  of  a  woman  should  be 
concealed.  Feeling  the  symptoms  of  sexual  maturity, 
such  a  girl  would  consider  the  condition  which  calls  her 
to  the  future  family  life,  with  the  obligations  and  joys  of 
a  mother,  a  morbid  and  unnatural  condition,  which  would 
bring  her  to  despair. 

Similar  despair  is  experienced  by  the  men  of  our  world 
at  the  first  signs  of  the  awakening  to  the  true  human  Hfe. 

A  man  in  whom  the  rational  consciousness  is  awak- 
ened, but  who  at  the  same  time  understands  his  life  only 
as  being  personal,  is  in  the  same  agonizing  condition 
in  which  an  animal  would  be,  which,  recognizing  the 
motion  of  matter  as  its  life,  would  not  recognize  the  law  of 
personahty,  but  would  only  see  its  life  in  the  subjection 
of  self  to  the  laws  of  matter,  which  take  place  without 
its  effort.  Such  an  animal  would  experience  an  agonizing 
internal  contradiction  and  doubling.  In  submitting  only 
to  the  laws  of  matter,  it  would  see  its  hfe  in  nothing  but 
lying  and  breathing,  but  its  personahty  would  demand 
something  different  of  it,  —  nutrition  of  self,  continuation 


ON    LIFE  271 

of  species,  —  and  then  the  animal  would  imagine  that  it 
experienced  a  doubling  and  contradiction.  "  Life,"  it 
would  think,  "  lies  in  submitting  to  the  laws  of  gravity, 
that  is,  in  not  moving,  and  lying  still,  and  in  submitting 
to  the  chemical  processes  which  take  place  in  the  body ; 
I  am  doing  all  this,  and  yet  I  have,  in  addition,  to  move, 
and  feed,  and  seek  a  male  or  female." 

The  animal  would  be  suffering,  and  would  see  an  ago- 
nizing contradiction  and  doubling  in  this  condition.  The 
same  takes  place  with  a  man  who  is  taught  to  regard  the 
baser  law  of  his  life,  the  animal  personality,  as  the  law  of 
his  life.  The  higher  law  of  life,  the  law  of  his  rational 
consciousness,  demands  something  different  of  him ;  but 
all  the  surrounding  life  and  the  false  teachings  keep  him 
in  a  deceptive  consciousness,  and  he  feels  a  contradiction 
and  doubling. 

But,  as  the  animal,  to  stop  suffering,  must  recognize  as 
its  law  not  the  baser  law  of  matter,  but  the  law  of  its 
personality,  and,  fulfilling  it,  makes  use  of  the  laws  of 
matter  for  the  gratification  of  the  purposes  of  its  personal- 
ity, —  even  so  a  man  has  to  recognize  his  life  not  in  the 
baser  law  of  personality,  but  in  the  higher  law,  wliich 
includes  the  first  law,  —  in  the  law  revealed  to  him  in  his 
rational  consciousness,  —  and  the  contradiction  will  be 
destroyed,  and  the  personality  will  be  freely  submitted  to 
the  rational  consciousness  and  will  serve  it. 


IX. 

THE    BIRTH    OF    THE    TRUE    LIFE    IN   MAN 

As  we  analyze  in  time  and  observe  the  manifestation  of 
life  in  the  human  being,  we  see  that  the  true  life  is 
always  preserved  in  man,  as  it  is  in  the  seed,  and  the 
time  comes  when  this  life  is  made  manifest.  The  mani- 
festation of  the  true  life  consists  in  this,  that  the  animal 
personality  draws  him  toward  its  own  good,  while  the 
rational  consciousness  shows  him  the  impossibility  of  the 
personal  good  and  points  out  a  certain  other  good.  Man 
strains  his  vision  toward  this  good,  which  is  pointed  out  to 
him  in  the  distance,  and  he  is  not  able  to  see  it ;  at  first 
he  does  not  believe  in  this  good  and  returns  to  the  per- 
sonal good ;  but  the  rational  consciousness,  which  points 
so  indefinitely  at  its  good,  shows  so  indubitably  and  so 
convincingly  the  impossibihty  of  the  personal  good  that 
man  again  renounces  his  personal  good  and  again  scans 
this  new  good,  which  is  pointed  out  to  him.  The  rational 
good  is  not  visible,  but  the  personal  good  is  so  thoroughly 
destroyed  that  it  is  impossible  to  continue  the  personal 
existence ;  and  in  man  there  is  being  established  a  new 
relation  of  his  animal  to  his  rational  consciousness.  He 
is  being  born  to  the  new  human  life. 

What  takes  place  is  similar  to  what  happens  in  the 
material  world  at  every  birth.  The  fruit  is  not  born 
because  it  wants  to  be  born,  because  it  is  better  for  it  to 
be  born,  and  because  it  knows  that  it  is  good  to  be  born, 
but  because  it  is  mature,  and  it  cannot  continue  its  former 
existence ;  it  is  compelled  to  surrender  to  the  new  life, 

272 


ON    LIFE  273 

not  so  much  because  the  new  Ufe  calls  it,  as  because  the 
possibility  of  the  former  existence  is  destroyed. 

The  rational  consciousness,  growing  imperceptibly  up 
in  his  persouahty,  reaches  a  point  when  the  Hfe  in  the 
personahty  becomes  impossible. 

What  takes  place  is  precisely  what  happens  at  the 
inception  of  everything :  the  same  destruction  of  the  seed, 
of  the  previous  form  of  life,  and  the  appearance  of  a  new 
growth ;  the  same  seeming  struggle  of  the  older  form  of 
the  decomposing  seed  and  the  increase  of  the  new  growth, 
and  the  same  nutrition  of  the  new  growth  at  the  expense 
of  the  decomposing  seed.  The  difference  between  the 
birth  of  the  rational  consciousDess  aud  the  visible  carnal 
inception  consists  for  us  in  this,  that  while  in  the  carnal 
birth  we  see  in  time  and  in  space  out  of  what,  and  how, 
and  when  a  being  is  born  of  the  germ,  know  that  the 
seed  is  the  fruit,  that  from  the  seed  under  certain  con- 
ditions the  plant  will  come,  that  it  will  have  a  flower  and 
then  a  fruit,  hke  the  seed  (the  circle  of  life  takes  place 
under  our  very  eyes),  —  we  do  not  see  the  growth  of  the 
rational  consciousness  in  time,  we  do  not  see  the  comple- 
tion of  its  circle.  We  do  not  see  this  gi'owth  of  the 
rational  consciousness  and  the  completion  of  its  circle, 
because  we  ourselves  complete  it :  our  life  is  nothing  but 
the  birth  of  that  invisible  essence  which  is  born  in  us, 
and  so  we  can  never  see  it. 

We  cannot  see  the  birth  of  this  new  essence,  the  new 
relation  of  the  rational  consciousness  to  the  animal,  just 
as  the  seed  cannot  see  the  growth  of  its  stalk.  When  the 
rational  consciousness  comes  out  of  its  concealed  position 
and  is  made  manifest  for  us,  it  seems  to  us  that  we  are 
experiencing  a  contradiction.  But  there  is  no  contradic- 
tion, just  as  there  is  none  in  the  sprouting  seed.  In  the 
sprouting  seed,  we  see  only  that  hfe,  which  before  was  in 
the  integument  of  the  seed,  ia  now  in  its  sprout.  Even 
so  there  is  no  contradiction  in  man  with  his  awakened 


274 


ON   LIFE 


rational  consciousness,  but  only  the  birth  of  a  new  being, 
of  a  new  relation  of  the  rational  consciousness  to  the 
animal. 

If  a  man  exists,  without  knowing  that  other  entities 
exist  and  that  enjoyments  will  not  satisfy  him,  —  that  he 
will  die,  —  he  does  not  even  know  that  he  hves,  and 
there  is  no  contradiction  in  him. 

But  if  a  man  has  come  to  see  that  other  entities  are 
just  such  as  he  himself  is,  that  sufferings  await  him,  that 
his  existence  is  a  slow  death ;  if  his  rational  consciousness 
has  begun  to  decompose  the  existence  of  his  personality, 
he  no  longer  can  put  his  hfe  in  this  decomposing  person- 
ality, but  inevitably  must  place  it  in  that  new  life  which 
is  revealed  to  him.  And  so  there  is  again  no  contradic- 
tion, as  there  is  no  contradiction  in  the  seed  which  has 
sent  forth  a  sprout  and,  therefore,  is  decomposing. 


X. 

REASON   IS   THAT   LAW   COGNIZED    BY   MAN,   BY   WHICH    HIS 
LIFE   IS   TO    BE   ACCOMPLISHED 

Man's  true  life,  which  is  manifested  in  the  relation  of 
his  rational  consciousness  to  his  animal  personality,  begins 
only  when  there  begins  the  negation  of  his  animal  per- 
sonality ;  but  the  negation  of  the  good  of  the  animal 
personality  begins  when  the  rational  consciousness  is 
awakened. 

But  what  is  the  rational  consciousness  ?  The  Gospel 
of  John  begins  with  this,  that  the  word  X0709  (reason, 
wisdom,  word)  is  the  beginning,  and  that  in  it  is  every- 
thing, and  everything  from  it ;  and  that,  therefore,  reason, 
that  which  defines  everything  else,  cannot  be  defined  by 
anything. 

Eeason  cannot  be  defined,  and  there  is  no  reason  for 
defining  it,  because  we  all  not  merely  know  it,  but  know 
nothing  else.  In  communing  with  one  another,  we  are 
convinced  in  advance  —  more  than  in  anything  else  — 
of  the  equal  obligatoriness  of  this  reason  which  is  com- 
mon to  us  all.  Reason  we  know  more  correctly  and 
earlier  than  anything  else,  so  that  everything  which  we 
know  in  the  world  we  know  only  because  what  is  cog- 
nized by  us  agrees  with  the  laws  of  this  reason,  which  is 
incontestably  known  to  us.  We  know  reason,  and  cannot 
help  knowing  it.  "We  cannot  help  it,  because  reason  is 
that  law  according  to  which  the  rational  beings  —  men 
—  must  inevitably  live.  Eeason  is  for  man  that  law 
according  to  which  his  life  is  accomplished,  just  such  a 

275 


276 


ON    LIFE 


law  as  the  one  for  which  the  auimal,  according  to  which 
it  feeds  and  niultipHes,  —  as  that  law  for  the  plant,  ac- 
cording to  which  it  grows,  and  the  grass,  the  tree  blooms, 
as  the  law  for  the  heavenly  body,  according  to  which 
the  earth  and  the  luminaries  move. 

The  law  which  we  know  in  ourselves  as  the  law  of  our 
life  is  the  same  law  according  to  which  all  the  external 
phenomena  of  the  world  are  accomplished,  but  with  this 
difference,  that  in  us  we  know  this  law  as  that  which  we 
ourselves  must  accomplish,  while  in  the  external  phe- 
nomena we  know  it  as  that  which  takes  place  according 
to  this  law  without  our  participation.  Everything  which 
we  know  of  the  world  is  only  the  visible  submission  to 
reason,  which  is  taking  place  outside  us,  in  the  heavenly 
bodies,  in  the  animals,  the  plants,  the  whole  world.  In 
the  external  world  we  see  this  submission  to  the  law  of 
reason ;  but  in  ourselves  we  know  this  law  as  that  which 
we  must  ourselves  accomplish. 

The  habitual  delusion  about  life  consists  in  this,  that 
t,he  subjection  of  our  animal  body  to  its  law,  which  is  not 
accomplished  by  us,  but  is  only  seen  by  us,  is  taken  for 
the  human  life,  while  this  law  of  our  animal  body,  with 
which  our  rational  consciousness  is  connected,  is  in  our 
animal  body  accomplished  as  unconsciously  as  it  is  ac- 
complished in  the  tree,  the  crystal,  the  heavenly  body. 
But  the  law  of  our  life  —  the  subjection  of  our  animal 
body  to  reason  —  is  that  law  which  we  see  nowhere,  and 
cannot  see,  because  it  has  not  yet  been  accomplished,  and 
is  being  accomplished  by  us  in  our  life.  In  the  accom- 
plishment of  this  law,  in  the  subjection  of  the  animal 
personality  to  the  law  of  reason,  for  the  purpose  of  obtain- 
ing the  good,  does  our  life  consist.  By  faihng  to  under- 
stand this,  that  our  good  and  our  hfe  consist  in  the 
subjection  of  our  animal  personahty  to  the  law  of  reason, 
by  accepting  the  good  and  the  existence  of  our  animal 
personality  as  our  whole  life  and  renouncing  the  task  of 


ON    LIFE  277 

life,  which  is  set  for  us,  we  deprive  ourselves  of  our  true 
good  and  of  our  true  life,  and  in  its  place  put  that  visible 
existence  of  our  animal  activity,  which  is  accomplished 
independently  of  us,  and  so  cannot  be  our  life. 


XL 

THE    FALSE    DIKECTION    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

The  delusion  that  the  visible  law,  which  operates  on 
our  animal  personality,  is  the  law  of  our  hfe  is  an  old 
delusion,  into  which  men  have  fallen  at  all  times.  This 
delusion,  by  conceahng  from  men  the  chief  object  of  their 
cognition,  the  subjection  of  the  animal  personahty  to  rea- 
son for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  the  good  of  life,  puts  in 
its  place  the  study  of  the  existence  of  men,  which  is  inde- 
pendent of  the  good  of  life. 

Instead  of  studying  the  law,  to  which,  for  the  purpose  of 
obtaining  its  good,  man's  animal  personality  must  be  sub- 
jected, and  instead  of  studying  aU  the  other  phenomena 
of  the  world  on  the  basis  of  the  cognition  of  this  law,  the 
false  knowledge  directs  its  efforts  only  to  the  study  of 
the  good  and  of  the  existence  of  man's  animal  personality, 
without  the  least  reference  to  the  chief  subject  of  knowl- 
edge,—  the  subjection  of  this  animal  personality  of  man 
to  the  law  of  reason,  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  the  good 
of  the  true  hfe. 

The  false  cognition,  by  not  having  in  view  this  chief 
object  of  knowledge,  directs  its  forces  to  the  study  of  the 
animal  existence  of  men  past  and  present  and  to  the  study 
of  the  conditions  of  man's  existence  in  general,  as  an  ani- 
mal. It  appears  to  him  that  from  these  studies  may  be 
found  the  guidance  for  the  good  of  the  human  life. 

The  false  knowledge  judges  as  follows :  Men  have 
existed  heretofore,  —  so  let  us  see  how  they  existed, 
through  what  changes  they  passed  in  theii-  existence  both 

278 


ON   LIFE  279 

in  time  and  space,  and  whither  these  changes  tend.  From 
these  historical  changes  of  their  existence  we  shall  find 
the  law  of  their  life. 

By  not  having  in  view  the  chief  aim  of  knowledge,  — 
the  study  of  that  rational  law  to  which  man's  personality 
ought  to  be  subjected  for  the  sake  of  his  good,  —  the  so- 
called  learned  men  of  this  category,  by  the  very  aim  which 
they  set  for  their  investigation,  pass  sentence  on  the  vanity 
of  all  study.  Indeed,  if  the  existence  of  men  changes 
only  in  consequence  of  the  general  laws  of  their  animal 
existence,  the  study  of  those  laws  to  which  it  is  sub- 
ject anyway  is  quite  useless  and  void.  Whether  men 
know  about  the  law  of  the  change  of  their  existence,  or 
not,  this  law  is  accomplished  just  as  the  change  in  the 
life  of  moles  and  beavers  is  accomplished  in  consequence 
of  those  conditions  under  which  they  live.  But  if  the 
knowledge  of  that  rational  law  to  which  man's  life  must 
be  subjected  is  possible  for  him,  it  is  evident  that  he  can 
not  find  the  knowledge  of  this  law  of  reason  anywhere 
except  where  it  has  been  revealed  to  him,  —  in  his  ra- 
tional consciousness.  And  so,  no  matter  how  much  men 
may  study  how  men  have  existed  as  animals,  they  will 
never  find  out  anything  about  the  existence  of  men,  which 
does  not  take  place  in  them  even  without  this  knowledge  ; 
and  never,  no  matter  how  much  they  may  study  man's 
animal  existence,  will  they  find  out  that  law  to  which, 
for  the  good  of  his  life,  this  animal  existence  of  man  must 
be  subjected. 

This  is  one  category  of  barren  human  reflections  on 
life,  which  are  called  historical  and  political  sciences. 

Another  category  of  reflections,  whicli  are  especially 
common  in  our  time,  and  with  which  the  only  object  of 
knowledge  is  entirely  lost  sight  of,  is  this  :  In  viewing  man 
as  an  object  of  observation,  we  see,  say  the  learned,  that 
he  feeds,  grows,  multiplies,  ages,  and  dies,  like  any  other 
animal ;  but  certain  psychic  phenomena  (so  they  call  them) 


280  ON   LIFE 

interfere  with  the  exactness  of  the  observations  and  offer  too 
great  a  complexity,  and  so,  in  order  that  we  may  better 
understand  man,  we  shall  view  his  life  first  in  simpler 
manifestations,  such  as  resemble  those  which  we  see  in 
the  animals  and  plants,  which  are  deprived  of  this  psychic 
activity.  But,  when  we  view  the  animals  and  plants,  we 
see  that  in  all  of  them  there  are  manifested  still  simpler 
laws  of  matter,  which  are  common  to  them  all.  And 
since  the  laws  of  the  animals  are  simpler  than  the  laws  of 
man,  and  the  laws  of  plants  are  still  simpler,  and  the  laws 
of  matter  still  simpler,  we  must  base  the  investigations  on 
the  very  simplest,  —  on  the  laws  of  matter.  We  see 
that  what  takes  place  in  the  plants  and  animals  takes 
place  in  the  same  way  in  man,  they  say,  and  so  we  con- 
clude that  everything  which  takes  place  in  man  will  be 
explained  to  us  from  what  takes  place  in  the  simplest 
visible  inanimate  matter  which  is  subject  to  our  experi- 
ments, —  the  more  so  since  all  the  peculiarities  of  man's 
activity  are  in  a  constant  dependence  on  the  forces  which 
are  active  in  matter.  Every  modification  in  the  matter 
which  forms  man's  body  changes  and  impairs  his  activity. 
And  so,  they  conclude,  the  laws  of  matter  are  the  causes 
of  man's  activity.  They  are  not  troubled  by  the  reflection 
that  in  man  there  is  something  which  we  do  not  see  in 
the  animals,  nor  in  the  plants,  nor  in  the  dead  matter, 
and  that  this  something  is  the  only  object  of  knowledge, 
without  which  every  other  is  useless. 

It  does  not  occur  to  them  that,  if  the  modification  of 
matter  in  man's  body  impairs  his  activity,  this  proves 
only  that  the  modification  of  matter  is  one  of  the  causes 
which  impair  man's  activity,  and  not  that  the  motion  of 
matter  is  the  cause  of  man's  activity.  Just  so  the  damage 
done  to  a  plant  by  the  removal  of  the  earth  beneath  its 
roots  proves  only  that  the  earth  may  be  everywhere,  or 
not,  but  not  that  the  plant  is  the  product  of  earth.  And 
so  they  study  in  man  what  takes  place  in  the  dead  matter, 


ON    LIFE  281 

and  in  the  plant,  and  in  the  animal,  assuminpf  that  the 
elucidation  of  the  laws  of  the  phenomena  which  corre- 
spond to  man's  life  make  clear  to  them  man's  very  life. 

In  order  that  we  may  understand  man's  life,  that  is, 
that  law  to  which,  for  the  sake  of  man's  good,  his  animal 
personality  is  to  be  subjected,  men  view  either  man's  his- 
torical existence,  and  not  his  life,  or  the  uncognizable  and 
merely  visible  subjection  of  the  animal,  the  plant,  and  the 
dead  matter  to  various  laws,  that  is,  they  do  the  same 
which  men  do  who  study  the  condition  of  unknown 
objects,  in  order  that  they  might  find  that  unknown  aim 
which  they  ought  to  follow. 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  knowledge  of  the  visible  man- 
ifestation of  men's  existence  in  history  may  be  instructive 
for  us,  and  that  the  study  of  the  laws  of  the  animal  per- 
sonahty  of  man  and  of  other  animals,  and  the  study  of 
the  laws  to  which  matter  itself  is  subject,  may  be  just 
as  instructive  to  us.  The  study  of  all  that  is  important 
for  man,  showing  him,  as  in  a  reflection,  what  necessarily 
takes  place  in  his  life ;  but  it  is  evident  that  the  knowl- 
edge of  what  has  already  taken  place  and  is  visible  to  us, 
no  matter  how  full  it  may  be,  cannot  give  us  the  chief 
knowledge  which  we  need,  —  the  knowledge  of  the  law 
to  which  our  animal  personality  must  be  subjected  for 
the  sake  of  our  good.  The  knowledge  of  the  laws  which 
are  operating  is  instructive  for  us,  but  only  when  we 
recognize  that  law  of  reason  to  which  our  animal  person- 
ality must  be  subordinated,  and  not  when  this  law  is  not 
at  all  recognized. 

No  matter  how  well  a  tree  may  study  (if  it  could  study) 
all  the  chemical  and  physical  phenomena  which  takes 
place  in  it,  it  could  not  from  these  observations  and  this 
knowledge  in  any  way  arrive  at  the  necessity  of  collect- 
ing sap  and  distributing  it  for  the  growth  of  its  trunk  to 
the  leaf,  the  flower,  and  the  fruit. 

Even  so  is  man :  no  matter  how  well  he  may  know 


282  ON    LIFE 

the  law  governing  his  animal  personality,  and  the  laws 
governing  matter,  these  laws  do  not  give  him  the  least 
indications  as  to  how  he  is  to  act  with  that  piece  of  bread 
which  he  has  in  his  hands,  —  whether  to  give  it  to  his 
wife,  a  stranger,  his  dog,  or  eat  it  himself  ;  whether  to  defend 
this  piece,  or  give  it  to  him  who  asks  him  for  it.  But  the  hf e 
of  man  consists  only  in  the  solution  of  these  and  similar 
questions. 

The  study  of  the  laws  governing  the  existence  of 
animals,  plants,  and  matter  is  not  only  useful,  but  even 
necessary  for  the  elucidation  of  the  law  of  man's  life,  but 
only  when  this  study  has  for  its  aim  the  chief  object  of 
human  knowledge,  —  the  elucidation  of  the  law  of  reason. 

But  with  the  supposition  that  man's  life  is  only  his 
animal  existence,  and  that  the  good,  as  pointed  out  by  the 
rational  consciousness,  is  impossible,  and  that  the  law  of 
reason  is  only  a  phantom,  such  a  study  becomes  not  only 
void,  but  also  pernicious,  in  that  it  conceals  from  man  his 
only  object  of  cognition  and  supports  him  in  that  error 
that  by  studying  the  reflection  of  an  object  he  may  know 
the  object  itself.  Such  a  study  is  like  what  a  man  would 
do  if  he  carefully  studied  all  the  changes  and  movements 
of  the  shadow  of  a  living  being,  thinking  that  the  cause 
of  the  motion  of  the  living  being  is  to  be  sought  in  the 
changes  and  movements  of  his  shadow. 


XII. 

THE  CAUSE  OF   THE  FALSE   KNOWLEDGE  IS  THE    FALSE  PER- 
SPECTIVE    IN    WHICH    OBJECTS    PRESENT    THEMSELVES 

"  True  knowledge  consists  in  knowing  that  we  know 
what  we  know,  and  do  not  know  what  we  do  not  know," 
said  Confucius ;  "  but  false  knowledge  consists  in  think- 
ing that  we  know  what  we  do  not  know,  and  do  not  know 
what  we  know."  It  is  impossible  to  give  a  more  exact 
definition  of  that  false  knowledge  which  reigns  among  us. 
The  false  knowledge  of  our  time  assumes  that  we  know 
what  we  cannot  know,  and  that  we  cannot  know  what 
alone  we  know.  To  a  man  with  false  knowledge  it  ap- 
pears that  he  knows  everything  which  appears  to  him  in 
space  and  time,  and  that  he  does  not  know  what  is  known 
to  him  in  his  rational  consciousness. 

To  such  a  man  it  appears  that  the  good  in  general  and 
his  good  in  particular  are  for  him  a  subject  of  which  he 
can  know  least.  Just  as  unknowable  appears  to  him  his 
reason,  his  rational  consciousness ;  he  himself,  as  an 
animal,  appears  to  himself  as  a  little  more  knowable  ob- 
ject ;  still  more  knowable  objects  are  for  him  the  animals 
and  plants,  and  most  knowable  appears  to  him  the  dead, 
infinitely  distributed  matter. 

Something  similar  takes  place  with  man's  vision.  A 
man  always  unconsciously  directs  his  vision  preferably 
to  most  distant  objects,  which,  consequently,  appear  to 
him  most  simple  in  colour  and  contour,  —  to  the  sky,  the 
horizon,  the  distant  fields,  the  woods.  These  objects 
present  themselves  the  more  clearly  defined  and  simple, 

283 


284  ON   LIFE 

the  farther  they  are  removed,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
nearer  an  object  is,  the  more  complicated  are  its  outlines 
and  colour. 

If  a  man  were  not  able  to  define  the  distance  of 
objects,  if  he  did  not  in  looking  arrange  the  objects  in 
perspective,  but  recognized  the  greater  simphcity  and  def- 
initeness  of  the  outlines  and  the  colour  of  the  objects  as 
a  greater  degree  of  visibility,  the  simplest  and  most  visible 
would  to  him  appear  the  endless  heaven,  then  less  visible 
the  more  complex  outlines  of  the  horizon,  then  still  less 
visible  the  houses  and  trees,  which  are  more  complex  in 
colour  and  outline,  and  still  less  visible  the  hand  which 
is  moving  in  front  of  his  eyes,  and  least  visible  of  all,  the 
light. 

Is  not  the  same  true  of  the  false  knowledge  of  man  ? 
What  is  indubitably  known  to  him,  his  rational  conscious- 
ness, seems  to  him  unknowable,  because  it  is  not  simple, 
while  what  is  incomprehensible  for  him,  the  infinite  and 
eternal  matter,  seems  to  him  most  kuowable,  because  on 
account  of  its  distance  from  him  it  appears  to  him  simple. 

But  the  reverse  is  true.  First  of  all  and  with  the  great- 
est certainty  every  man  may  know  and  does  know  that 
good  toward  which  he  is  striving;  then  he  knows  with 
the  same  certainty  that  reason  which  shows  him  this 
good  ;  then  only  he  knows  his  animal  personality,  which 
is  subjected  to  this  reason,  and  then  only  he  sees,  but 
does  not  know,  all  the  other  phenomena,  which  present 
themselves  to  him  in  space  and  time. 

It  is  only  to  a  man  with  the  false  concept  of  life  that 
it  appears  that  he  knows  the  objects  better  the  more  they 
are  determined  in  space  and  time ;  but  in  reality  we  know 
fully  only  that  which  is  not  determined  in  space,  or  time, 
—  the  good  and  the  law  of  reason ;  but  the  external  ob- 
jects we  know  less,  in  proportion  as  our  consciousness 
takes  less  part  in  the  cognition,  in  consequence  of  which 
an  object  is  defined  only  by  its  place  in  space  and  time. 


ON   LIFE  285 

And  so,  the  more  exclusively  an  object  is  defined  by  space 
and  time,  the  less  it  is  kuowable  for  man. 

Man's  true  knowledge  ends  with  the  cognition  of  his 
personality,  of  his  animal.  This  animal  of  his,  which 
strives  after  the  good  and  is  subject  to  the  law  of  reason, 
man  knows  quite  distinctly  from  the  laiowledge  of  every- 
thing which  is  not  his  personality.  He  really  knows 
himself  in  this  animal,  and  knows  himself  not  because  he 
is  something  spatial  and  temporal  (on  the  contrary, — 
he  can  never  know  himself  as  a  temporal  and  spatial 
manifestation),  but  because  he  is  something  which  for  the 
sake  of  its  good  must  be  subjected  to  the  law  of  reason. 
He  knows  himself  in  this  animal  as  something  independ- 
ent of  time  and  space.  When  he  asks  himself  about  his 
place  in  time  and  space,  it  appears  to  him  first  of  all  that 
he  is  standing  in  the  midst  of  time  which  is  infinite  on 
either  side,  and  that  he  is  the  centre  of  a  globe,  whose 
periphery  is  everywhere  and  nowhere.  And  it  is  this 
extra-temporal  and  extra-spatial  self  that  man  knows  in 
reahty,  and  with  this  ego  of  his  ends  his  real  knowledge. 
Everything  which  is  outside  this  ego  man  does  not  know, 
and  can  only  observe  and  define  in  an  external,  conditional 
manner. 

By  renouncing  for  a  time  the  knowledge  of  himself  as 
a  rational  centre  which  is  striving  after  the  good,  that 
is,  as  an  extra-temporal  and  extra-spatial  being,  man  may  for 
a  time  admit  conditionally  that  he  is  a  part  of  the  visible 
universe,  which  manifests  itself  in  space  and  time.  By 
viewing  himself  thus,  in  space  and  time,  in  connection 
with  other  beings,  man  unites  his  true  inner  knowledge  of 
himself  with  an  external  observation  of  himself,  and 
receives  the  notion  of  himself  as  of  a  man  in  general,  re- 
sembling all  other  men ;  from  this  conditional  knowledge 
of  himself  man  gets  a  certain  external  notion  of  other 
men  as  well,  but  he  does  not  know  them. 

The  impossibihty  for  man  of  getting  a  true  knowledge  of 


286  ON   LIFE 

men  is  due  even  to  this,  that  he  sees  not  merely  one  such 
man,  but  hundreds  and  thousands  of  them,  and  knows 
that  there  are,  have  been,  and  will  be  such  men,  whom 
he  has  never  seen  and  never  will  see. 

Beyond  men,  at  a  still  greater  distance  from  himself,  man 
sees  in  space  and  time  animals  which  differ  from  men  and 
from  one  another.  These  beings  would  be  entirely  in- 
comprehensible to  him,  if  he  did  not  have  any  knowledge 
of  man  in  general ;  but,  since  he  has  this  knowledge  and 
abstracts  from  the  concept  of  man  his  rational  conscious- 
ness, he  gets  a  certain  notion  also  about  the  animals ;  but 
this  notion  still  less  resembles  knowledge  for  him  than 
his  notion  of  men  in  general.  Of  animals  he  sees  the 
greatest  variety  and  in  enormous  numbers,  and  the  greater 
their  numbers,  the  less  possible  can  his  knowledge  of  them 
obviously  be. 

Still  farther  away  from  himself,  he  sees  the  plants,  and 
the  distribution  of  these  phenomena  is  still  greater  in  the 
world,  and  so  the  knowledge  of  them  is  still  more  impos- 
sible. 

Still  farther  away  from  himself,  beyond  the  animals 
and  plants,  in  space  and  time,  man  sees  the  dead  bodies 
and  the  feebly,  or  not  at  all,  differentiated  forms  of  matter. 
Matter  he  understands  least  of  all.  The  knowledge  of 
the  forms  of  matter  is  for  him  quite  indifferent,  and  he  not 
only  fails  to  know  it,  but  merely  imagines  it,  —  the  more 
so  since  matter  presents  itself  to  him  as  infinite  in  space 
and  time. 


XIII. 

THE  KNOWABLENESS  OF  OBJECTS  DOES  NOT  INCREASE  IN 
CONSEQUENCE  OF  THEIR  MANIFESTATION  IN  SPACE  AND 
TIME,  BUT  IN  CONSEQUENCE  OF  THE  UNITY  OF  THE  LAW 
TO  "WHICH  WE  AND  ALL  THE  OBJECTS  WHICH  WE  STUDY 
ARE  SUBJECT 

What  can  be  more  intelligible  than  the  words :  the 
dog  has  a  pain  ;  the  calf  is  gentle,  —  it  loves  me  ;  the  bird 
is  glad,  the  horse  is  afraid,  a  good  man,  a  bad  animal  ? 
Now  all  these  most  important  and  intelligible  words  are 
not  defined  in  space  and  time ;  on  the  contrary :  the  less 
intelligible  the  law  is  to  which  the  phenomenon  is  sub- 
ject, the  more  exactly  is  the  phenomenon  defined  in  time 
and  space.  Who  can  say  that  he  understands  that  law 
of  gravitation  according  to  which  the  motion  of  the  earth 
and  the  sun  takes  place  ?  And  yet  the  eclipse  of  the  sun 
is  most  exactly  defined  in  space  and  time. 

We  know  completely  only  our  life,  our  striving  after 
the  good,  and  reason,  which  points  this  good  out  to  us. 
Next  in  certainty  is  the  knowledge  of  our  animal  person- 
ality, which  strives  toward  the  good  and  is  subject  to  the 
law  of  reason.  In  the  knowledge  of  our  animal  person- 
ality there  appear  already  spatial  and  temporal  conditions, 
visible,  sensible,  observable,  but  inaccessible  to  our  under- 
standing. Next  in  certainty  is  the  knowledge  of  just  such 
animal  personalities  as  we  are,  in  whom  we  recognize  a 
common  striving  toward  the  good  and  a  common  rational 
consciousness.  We  know  them  to  the  extent  to  which 
the  life  of  these  personalities  approximates  the  laws  of 

287 


288  ON    LIFE 

our  life,  of  the  striving  after  the  good,  and  of  the  subjec- 
tion to  the  law  of  reason ;  we  do  not  know  them  to  the 
extent  to  which  their  hfe  is  manifested  in  spatial  and  tem- 
poral conditions.  Thus  we  know  men  most.  Next  in 
certitude  is  our  knowledge  of  animals,  in  which  we  see  a 
personahty  striving,  like  our  own,  after  the  good ;  but  we 
here  barely  recognize  a  semblance  of  our  rational  con- 
sciousness, and  with  them  we  can  no  longer  commune  by 
means  of  this  our  rational  consciousness.  Next  after  the 
animals  we  see  the  plants,  in  which  we  with  difficulty 
recognize  a  personality,  Hke  our  own,  striving  after  the 
good.  These  beings  present  themselves  to  us  mainly  as 
temporal  and  spatial  phenomena,  and  so  are  still  less 
accessible  to  our  knowledge. 

We  know  them,  only  because  in  them  we  see  a  person- 
ality, resembling  our  animal  personality,  which,  hke  our 
own,  strives  after  the  good  and  subjects  matter  to  the  law 
of  reason  manifested  in  it,  in  the  conditions  of  space  and 
time. 

Still  less  accessible  to  our  knowledge  are  impersonal, 
material  objects ;  in  these  we  no  longer  find  a  similitude 
of  our  personality,  no  longer  see  a  striving  after  the  good, 
but  only  temporal  and  spatial  manifestations  of  the  laws 
of  reason,  to  which  they  are  subject. 

The  correctness  of  our  knowledge  does  not  depend  on 
the  observableness  of  objects  in  space  and  time ;  on  the 
contrary,  the  more  observable  a  manifestation  of  an  object 
is  in  space  and  time,  the  less  comprehensible  it  is  for  us. 

Our  knowledge  of  the  world  results  from  the  conscious- 
ness of  our  striving  after  the  good,  and  from  the  necessity, 
for  the  sake  of  obtaining  this  good,  of  subjecting  our 
animal  to  reason.  If  we  know  the  life  of  an  animal,  we 
know  it  only  because  we  see  in  the  animal  also  a  striving 
after  the  good  and  a  necessity  of  submitting  to  the  law  of 
reason,  which  in  the  animal  presents  itself  as  the  law 
of  the  organism. 


ON    LIFE  289 

If  we  know  matter,  we  know  it  only  because,  though 
its  good  is  not  comprehensible  to  us,  we  none  the  less  see 
in  it  the  same  phenomenon  as  in  ourselves, —  the  neces- 
sity of  submitting  to  the  law  of  reason  which  governs  it. 

The  knowledge  of  anything  is  for  us  the  transference 
to  other  objects  of  our  knowledge  of  the  fact  that  life  is  a 
striving  after  the  good,  which  is  obtained  by  submitting 
to  the  law  of  reason. 

Everytliiug  which  a  man  knows  of  the  external  world 
he  knows  only  because  he  knows  himself  and  in  him- 
self finds  three  different  relations  to  the  world :  one  — 
the  relation  of  his  rational  consciousness,  the  second  —  the 
relation  of  his  animal,  and  the  third  —  the  relation  of 
matter  which  enters  the  body  of  his  animal.  He  knows 
in  himself  these  three  different  relations,  and  so  every- 
thing wliich  he  sees  in  the  world  is  always  distributed 
before  him  in  the  perspective  of  three  distinct  plans :  (1) 
rational  beings;  (2)  animals  and  plants,  and  (3)  inani- 
mate matter. 

Man  always  sees  these  three  categories  of  objects  in 
the  world,  because  he  embraces  in  himself  these  three 
objects  of  cognition.  He  knows  himself:  (1)  as  rational 
consciousness,  subordinating  tlie  animal ;  (2)  as  an  animal, 
subject  to  rational  consciousness,  and  (3)  as  matter,  sub- 
ject to  the  animal. 

It  is  not  from  the  cognition  of  the  laws  of  matter,  as  is 
generally  believed,  that  we  can  know  the  laws  of  the 
organisms,  and  not  from  the  cognition  of  the  laws  of 
the  orcranisms  that  we  can  know  ourselves  as  rational 
beings,  but  vice  versa.  First  of  all,  we  can  and  must 
know  ourselves,  that  is,  that  law  of  reason  to  which,  for 
the  sake  of  our  good,  our  personality  has  to  be  subordi- 
nated, and  then  only  can  we  and  must  we  know  the  law 
of  our  animal  personality  and  of  entities  similar  to  it, 
and,  at  a  still  more  remote  distance  from  ourselves,  the 
laws  of  matter. 


290  ON   LIFE 

We  must  know  and  do  know  only  ourselves.  The 
world  of  animals  is  for  us  only  a  reflection  of  what  we 
know  in  ourselves.  The  material  world  is,  as  it  were,  a 
reflection  of  a  reflection. 

The  laws  of  matter  seem  especially  clear  to  us,  only 
because  they  are  uniform  for  us ;  and  they  are  uniform 
for  us,  only  because  they  are  particularly  remote  from 
the  cognizable  law  of  our  life. 

The  laws  of  the  organisms  seem  to  us  simpler  than  the 
law  of  our  life,  again  on  account  of  their  remoteness  from 
us.  But  in  them  we  merely  observe  the  laws  :  we  do 
not  know  them,  as  we  know  the  law  of  our  rational  con- 
sciousness, which  has  to  be  fulfilled  by  us. 

We  know  neither  the  one  existence,  nor  the  other : 
we  only  see  and  observe  it  outside  ourselves.  What  we 
know  beyond  any  doubt  is  the  law  of  our  rational  con- 
sciousness, because  it  is  needed  for  our  good,  because  we 
live  by  this  consciousness ;  and  we  do  not  see  it,  because 
we  are  not  in  possession  of  that  higher  point  from  which 
we  may  observe  it. 

But,  if  there  existed  higher  beings  which  would  su))- 
ordinate  our  rational  consciousness  in  the  same  way 
in  which  we  subordinate  our  animal  personality,  and  in 
which  the  animal  personality  (the  organism)  subordinates 
matter,  these  higher  beings  could  see  our  rational  life, 
just  as  we  see  our  animal  existence  and  the  existence  of 
matter. 

Man's  life  presents  itself  as  insolubly  connected  with 
two  forms  of  existence,  which  it  embraces :  the  existence 
of  animals  and  plants  (organisms)  and  the  existence  of 
matter, 

Man  produces  his  own  true  life,  —  he  lives  through  it ; 
but  in  those  two  forms  of  existence  which  are  connected 
with  his  life  man  cannot  be  a  participant.  The  body  and 
matter,  which  form  him,  exist  in  themselves. 

These  forms  of  existence  present  themselves  to  man  as 


ON    LIFE  291 

lives  passed  through  at  some  former  time  and  embraced 
by  his  hfe,  —  as  recollections  of  former  lives. 

In  man's  true  life  these  two  forms  of  existence  repre- 
sent to  hiiu  the  instrument  and  material  of  his  labour, 
but  not  the  labour  itself. 

It  is  useful  for  man  to  study  both  the  material  and 
instrument  of  his  labour.  The  better  he  knows  them,  the 
better  he  will  be  able  to  work.  The  study  of  these  forms 
of  existence  which  are  included  in  his  life  —  of  his  ani- 
mal and  of  the  matter  forming  the  animal  —  shows  to 
man,  as  though  in  a  reflection,  the  general  law  of  every- 
thing in  existence,  —  the  submission  to  the  law  of  reason, 
and  so  confirms  him  in  the  necessity  of  the  submission  of 
his  animal  to  this  law ;  but  man  cannot  and  must  not 
mistake  the  material  and  the  instrument  of  his  labour  for 
the  labour  itself. 

No  matter  how  much  man  may  study  hfe  which  is  vis- 
ible, sensible,  observable  in  himself  and  in  others,  —  life 
which  is  accomplished  without  his  efforts,  this  life  always 
remains  a  mystery  to  him ;  from  these  observations  he 
will  never  comprehend  this  unknowable  life,  and  by 
means  of  observations  on  this  mysterious  life,  which  is 
always  concealed  from  him  in  the  infinitude  of  space  and 
time,  he  will  never  illuminate  his  true  life,  which  is 
revealed  to  him  in  his  consciousness,  and  which  consists 
in  the  subjection  of  his  unique  and  most  familiar  animal 
personahty  to  the  unique  and  most  familiar  law  of  reason, 
for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  his  unique  and  most  familiar 
good  for  himself. 


XIV. 

man's  teue  life  is   not  what  takes  place  in  space 

AND   TIME 

Man  knows  his  life  in  him  as  a  striving  after  the  good, 
which  is  obtainable  by  the  submission  of  his  animal  per- 
sonality to  the  law  of  reason. 

Another  human  life  he  does  not  know  and  cannot 
know.  Indeed,  mau  only  then  acknowledges  an  animal 
to  be  alive,  when  its  composing  matter  is  subject  not  only 
to  its  own  laws,  but  also  to  the  higher  law  of  the  organism. 

If  in  a  certain  combination  of  matter  there  is  a  subjec- 
tion to  the  higher  law  of  the  organism,  we  recognize  life 
in  this  combination  of  matter  ;  if  this  subjection  does  not 
exist,  —  if  it  has  not  yet  begun,  or  has  come  to  an 
end,  —  and  if  that  no  longer  exists  which  separates  this 
matter  from  all  the  other  matter,  in  which  nothing  but 
mechanical,  chemical,  physical  laws  act,  we  do  not  rec- 
ognize in  it  any  animal  hfe. 

Even  so  we  only  then  recognize  ourselves  and  similar 
beings  as  living,  when  our  animal  personality,  in  addition 
to  the  subjection  of  the  organism  to  its  law,  is  also  sub- 
jected to  the  higher  law  of  rational  consciousness. 

As  long  as  this  subjection  of  the  personality  to  the  law 

of  reason  does  not  exist,  as  long  as  in  man  acts  only  the 

law  of  personality,  subduing  the  matter  which  composes 

it,  we  do  not  know  and  do  not  see  the  human  hfe  either 

in  others  or  in  ourselves,  as  we  do  not  see  the  animal 

life  in  the  matter  which  submits  only  to  its  own  laws. 

No  matter   how    strong  or    quick    the    movements  of 

292 


ON   LIFE  293 

man  may  be  in  delirium,  iu  insanity,  or  in  agony,  in 
intoxication,  and  even  in  an  outburst  of  passion,  we  do 
not  recognize  man  as  living,  do  not  treat  him  as  a  living 
man,  and  recognize  in  him  only  the  possibility  of  life. 
But  no  matter  how  feeble  or  immovable  a  man  may  be,  — 
if  we  see  that  his  animal  personality  is  subject  to  reason, 
we  recognize  him  as  living  and  treat  him  accordingly. 

Human  life  we  cannot  understand  otherwise  than  as 
subjection  of  the  animal  personality  to  the  law  of  reason. 

This  life  is  manifested  in  time  and  space,  but  is  not 
determined  by  temporal  or  spatial  conditions,  but  only  by 
the  degree  of  the  subjection  of  the  animal  personality  to 
reason.  To  determine  life  by  temporal  and  spatial  con- 
ditions is  the  same  as  defining  the  height  of  an  object  by 
its  length  and  breadth. 

The  upward  motion  of  an  object,  which  at  the  same 
time  moves  on  a  plane,  will  be  an  exact  similitude  of  the 
relation  of  man's  true  life  to  the  life  of  the  animal  per- 
sonality, or  of  the  true  life  to  the  temporal  and  spatial 
life.  The  upw^ard  motion  of  the  object  does  not  depend 
on  the  motion  on  the  plane,  and  cannot  be  increased  or 
diminished  by  it.  The  same  is  true  of  the  determination 
of  man's  life.  The  true  life  is  always  made  manifest  in 
the  personality,  but  does  not  depend  on  this  or  that  ex- 
istence of  the  personahty,  and  cannot  be  increased  or 
diminished  by  it. 

The  temporal  and  spatial  conditions,  in  which  man's 
animal  personality  happens  to  be,  cannot  influence  the 
true  life,  which  consists  in  the  subjection  of  the  animal 
personality  to  the  rational  consciousness. 

It  is  beyond  the  power  of  man,  who  wants  to  live,  to 
destroy  or  arrest  the  spatial  and  temporal  motion  of  his 
existence ;  but  his  true  life  is  the  attainment  of  the  good 
by  means  of  subjection  to  reason,  independently  of  these 
visible  spatial  and  temporal  motions.  In  this  greater  and 
ever  greater  attainment  of  the  good  by  means  of  the  sub- 


294  ON   LIFE 

jection  to  reason  lies  that  which  forms  the  human  life. 
If  this  increase  in  the  subjection  be  wanting,  the  human 
life  goes  in  the  two  visible  directions  of  space  and  of  time, 
and  is  nothing  but  existence.  If  this  upward  motion 
exists,  —  this  greater  and  ever  greater  submission  to  rea- 
son, a  relation  is  established  between  the  two  forces  and 
the  one,  and  a  greater  or  lesser  motion  along  the  resultant 
takes  place  and  raises  existence  into  the  sphere  of  life. 

The  spatial  and  temporal  forces  are  definite,  final  forces, 
which  are  incompatible  with  the  concept  of  hfe ;  but  the 
force  of  striving  after  the  good  through  submission  to  rea- 
son is  a  force  which  raises  upward,  —  it  is  the  force  of 
life  itself,  for  which  there  are  no  temporal,  no  spatial 
limitations. 

Man  imagines  that  his  life  is  arrested  or  doubled,  but 
these  arrests  and  perturbations  are  only  an  illusion  of 
consciousness  (like  the  illusion  of  the  external  sensations). 
There  are  no  arrests  and  perturbations  of  the  true  life, 
and  there  can  be  none :  they  only  seem  so  to  us  with  our 
false  view  of  life. 

A  man  begins  to  live  a  true  life,  that  is,  rises  to  a  cer- 
tain height  above  the  animal  life,  and  from  this  height 
sees  the  phantasmal  condition  of  his  animal  existence, 
which  inevitably  ends  in  death,  and  that  his  existence  on 
the  plane  is  on  all  sides  limited  by  abysses,  and,  as  he 
does  not  acknowledge  that  this  upward  tendency  is  life, 
he  is  terrified  at  what  is  revealed  to  him  from  his  height, 
and  purposely  descends  and  lies  down  as  low  as  possible, 
in  order  that  he  may  not  see  the  precipices  that  are  open 
to  him.  But  the  force  of  his  rational  consciousness  lifts 
him  up  again,  and  again  he  sees,  again  he  is  terrified,  and 
again  he  descends  to  earth,  in  order  that  he  may  not  see. 
This  lasts  until  he  finally  recognizes  that,  in  order  to  save 
himself  from  the  terror  before  the  precipitous  motion  of 
perishable  hfe,  he  must  understand  that  his  motion  in  the 
plane  —  his  spatial  and  temporal  existence  —  is  not  his 


ON   LIFE  295 

life,  that  his  life  is  only  in  the  upward  motion,  and  that 
only  in  the  subjection  of  his  personality  to  the  law  of  rea- 
son does  the  possibihty  of  the  good  and  of  life  consist. 
He  must  uuderstand  that  he  has  wings  which  raise  him 
above  the  precipice,  that,  if  he  did  not  possess  these  wings, 
he  would  never  have  risen  to  the  height  and  have  seen 
the  precipice.  He  must  have  faith  in  his  wings  and  fly 
whither  they  carry  liim. 

Only  from  this  want  of  assurance  arise  those  perturba- 
tions of  the  true  life,  its  arrests  and  the  doubling  of  con- 
sciousness, which  at  first  appear  so  strange. 

Only  to  a  man  who  understands  his  life  in  the  animal 
existence  as  defined  by  space  and  by  time  does  it  appear 
that  the  rational  consciousness  has  been  manifested  at 
times  in  the  animal  existence.  Looking  thus  upon  the 
manifestation  in  himself  of  the  rational  consciousness, 
man  asks  himself  when  and  under  what  conditions  his 
rational  consciousness  appeared  in  him.  But  no  matter 
how  much  a  man  may  investigate  his  past,  he  will  never 
discover  these  times  of  the  manifestation  of  his  rational 
consciousness :  it  always  seems  to  him  that  either  it  has 
never  existed,  or  has  existed  at  all  times.  If  it  appears 
to  him  that  there  have  been  intervals  of  his  rational  con- 
scipusness,  this  is  due  to  the  fact  that  he  does  not  recog- 
nize the  life  of  the  rational  consciousness  as  life.  By 
understanding  his  life  only  as  animal  existence,  as  defined 
by  spatial  and  temporal  conditions,  man  wants  to  measure 
the  awakening  and  the  activity  of  the  rational  conscious- 
ness with  the  same  measure :  he  asks  himself,  "  When, 
how  long,  under  what  conditions  have  I  been  in  possession 
of  the  rational  consciousness  ? "  but  the  intervals  between 
the  awakenings  of  the  rational  hfe  exist  only  for  a  man 
who  understands  his  hfe  as  the  life  of  the  animal  person- 
ality. For  a  man  who  understands  his  hfe  to  be  in  what 
it  is,  —  in  the  activity  of  the  rational  consciousness,  — 
these  intervals  do  not  exist. 


296  ON   LIFE 

The  rational  life  exists.  It  alone  exists.  Intervals  of 
time,  whether  of  one  minute  or  of  fifty  thousand  years, 
are  immaterial  for  it,  because  time  does  not  exist  for  it. 
Man's  true  life  —  from  which  he  forms  for  liimself  a 
concept  of  any  other  life  —  is  a  striving  after  the  good, 
obtainable  by  the  subjection  of  his  personality  to  the  law 
of  reason.  Neither  reason,  nor  the  degree  of  subjection 
to  reason,  are  defined  by  space  or  by  time.  Man's  true 
life  takes  place  outside  space  and  time. 


XV. 

THE    RENUNCIATION     OF     THE     GOOD     OF    ANIMAL     PERSON- 
ALITY   IS    THE    LAW    OF    HUMAN    LIFE 

Life  is  the  striving  after  the  good.  The  striving  after  the 
good  is  hfe.  Thus  all  men  have  always  understood  life, 
and  thus  they  will  always  understand  it.  Consequently 
man's  life  is  a  striving  after  the  human  good,  and  the 
striving  after  the  human  good  is  human  life.  The  crowd, 
the  unthinking  people,  understand  man's  good  to  lie  in  the 
good  of  his  animal  personality. 

The  false  science,  by  excluding  the  concept  of  the  good 
from  the  definition  of  life,  understands  life  to  be  in  the 
animal  existence,  and  so  it  sees  the  good  of  life  only  in 
the  animal  good  and  coincides  with  the  errors  of  the  crowd. 

In  either  case  the  error  is  due  to  the  confusion  of  the 
personality,  of  the  individuality,  as  science  calls  it,  with 
the  rational  consciousness.  Eational  consciousness  in- 
cludes personality ;  but  personality  does  not  include  ra- 
tional consciousness.  Personality  is  a  property  of  an 
animal,  and  of  man  as  an  animal.  Eational  consciousness 
is  the  property  of  man  alone. 

An  animal  can  live  for  its  body  only, —  nothing  pre- 
vents it  from  living  so ;  it  gratifies  its  personality,  and 
unconsciously  serves  its  species,  and  does  not  know  that 
it  is  a  personality  ;  but  rational  man  cannot  live  for  his 
body  alone.  He  cannot  live  so,  because  he  Icuows  that 
he  is  a  personahty,  and  so  he  knows  that  other  beings  are 
just  such  personalities  as  he,  and  he  knows  what  must 
happen  from  the  relations  of  these  personalities. 

297 


298  ON   LIFE 

If  man  strove  only  after  the  good  of  his  personality  and 
loved  only  himself,  his  personality,  he  would  not  know 
that  other  beings  love  themselves,  just  as  animals  do 
not  know  it ;  but  if  man  knows  that  he  is  a  personality 
striving  after  the  same  that  all  the  beings  surrounding  him 
strive  after,  he  can  no  longer  strive  after  the  good  which 
is  visible  to  his  rational  consciousness  as  evil,  and  his  life 
can  no  longer  consist  in  the  striving  after  the  good  of  per- 
sonahty.  It  only  seems  at  times  to  man  that  his  striving 
after  the  good  has  for  its  object  the  gratification  of  the 
demands  of  his  animal  personality.  This  deception  is 
due  to  this,  that  man  takes  what  he  sees  to  be  going  on 
in  his  animal  as  the  aim  of  the  activity  of  his  rational 
consciousness.  What  takes  place  is  like  what  a  man 
would  do  if  he  were  guided  m  his  wakeful  state  by  what 
he  sees  in  his  dream. 

And  then,  if  this  deception  is  maintained  by  the  false 
teachings,  there  takes  place  in  man  the  confusion  of  the 
personality  with  the  rational  consciousness. 

But  the  rational  consciousness  always  shows  man  that 
the  gratification  of  the  demands  of  his  animal  personality 
cannot  be  his  good,  and,  therefore,  his  life,  and  irrepressi- 
bly  draws  him  toward  that  good  and,  therefore,  toward 
that  life,  which  is  peculiar  to  him  and  is  not  contained  in 
his  animal  personality. 

People  generally  think  and  say  that  the  renunciation 
of  the  good  of  personality  is  a  heroic  deed,  a  praiseworthy 
quality  in  man.  The  renunciation  of  the  good  of  person- 
ality is  not  a  praiseworthy  quality,  a  heroic  deed,  but  an 
inevitable  condition  of  man's  life.  At  the  same  time  that 
man  recognizes  himself  as  a  personality  distinct  from  the 
whole  world  he  recognizes  also  other  personalities  as  dis- 
tinct from  the  whole  world,  and  their  mutual  connection, 
and  the  phantasm  of  the  good  of  his  personality,  and  the 
actuality  of  only  such  a  good  as  can  satisfy  his  rational 
consciousness. 


to 


ON    LIFE  299 

For  an  animal  an  activity  which  has  not  for  its  aim 
the  good  of  personahty,  but  is  directly  opposed  to  this 
good,  is  a  negation  of  life :  but  for  man  it  is  the  very  op- 
posite. Man's  activity  which  is  directed  only  to  the 
acquisition  of  the  good  of  personahty  is  a  full  negation  of 
human  life. 

For  an  animal,  which  has  no  rational  consciousness 
that  shows  to  it  the  wretchedness  and  finality  of  its  exist- 
ence, the  good  of  personality  and  the  resulting  continuation 
of  the  species  of  the  personality  are  the  highest  aim  of 
life.  But  for  man  personality  is  only  that  stage  of  his 
existence  from  which  the  true  good  of  his  life,  which 
does  not  coincide  with  the  good  of  his  personality,  is  re- 
vealed to  him. 

The  consciousness  of  the  personahty  is  for  man  not  life, 
but  that  limit  at  which  his  life  begins,  that  hfe  w^hich 
consists  in  a  greater  and  ever  greater  attainment  of  the 
good  which  is  peculiar  to  him,  and  which  is  independent 
of  the  good  of  the  animal  personahty. 

According  to  the  current  conception  of  life,  man's  life 
is  a  piece  of  time  from  the  birth  to  the  death  of  his  ani- 
mal. But  this  is  not  man's  life ;  it  is  only  man's  existence 
as  an  animal  personality.  Man's  life  is  something  which 
is  manifested  only  in  animal  existence,  just  as  organic 
life  is  something  which  is  manifested  only  in  the  exist- 
ence of  matter. 

The  visible  aims  of  man's  personahty  at  first  appear  to 
him  as  the  aims  of  his  life.  These  aims  are  visible  and 
so  seem  intelligible. 

But  the  aims  which  are  indicated  to  him  by  his  rational 
consciousness  seem  unintelligible,  because  they  are  invisi- 
ble. At  first  it  is  hard  for  a  man  to  renounce  the  visible 
and  abandon  himself  to  the  invisible. 

To  a  man  who  is  corrupted  by  the  false  teachings  of 
the  world,  the  demands  of  the  animal,  which  are  accom- 
plished of  themselves  and  are  visible,  both  in  himself  and 


300  ON   LIFE 

in  others,  seem  simple  and  clear,  while  the  new,  invisible 
demands  of  the  rational  consciousness  appear  as  contra- 
dictory ;  their  gratification,  which  is  not  accompHshed  of 
itself,  but  is  the  action  of  the  person,  appears  complex 
and  obscure.  One  feels  terribly  and  ill  at  ease  in  re- 
nouncing the  visible  conception  of  life  and  abandoning 
oneself  to  its  invisible  consciousness,  just  as  a  child  would 
feel  terribly  and  ill  at  ease  when  it  is  born,  if  it  could 
feel  its  birth  ;  —  but  what  is  to  be  done,  since  it  is  ob- 
vious that  the  visible  conception  leads  to  death,  and  the 
invisible  consciousness  alone  gives  life  ? 


XVI. 

THE   ANIMAL   PEESONALITY   IS    AN    INSTRUMENT   OF   LIFE 

No  reflections  cau  conceal  from  man  that  obvious,  un- 
doubted truth  that  his  personal  existence  is  something 
constantly  perishing,  tending  toward  death,  and  that, 
therefore,  there  can  be  no  life  in  his  animal  personality. 

Man  cannot  help  but  see  that  the  existence  of  his  per- 
sonality from  birth  and  childhood  to  old  age  and  death 
is  nothing  but  a  constant  waste  and  diminution  of  this 
animal  personality,  which  ends  in  inevitable  death ;  and 
so  the  consciousness  of  his  life  in  the  personality,  which 
includes  the  desire  for  the  increase  and  indestructibleness 
of  the  personality,  cannot  help  but  be  a  constant  contra- 
diction, and  the  suffering  cannot  help  but  be  an  evil, 
whereas  the  only  meaning  of  his  Hfe  is  a  striving  after 
the  good. 

No  matter  what  the  true  good  of  man  may  consist  in, 
his  renunciation  of  the  good  of  his  animal  personality  is 
inevitable  for  him. 

The  renunciation  of  the  good  of  the  animal  personality 
is  a  law  of  human  life.  If  it  is  not  accomphshed  freely, 
finding  its  expression  in  the  subjection  to  the  rational 
consciousness,  it  is  accomplished  in  each  man  violently 
at  the  carnal  death  of  his  animal,  when  under  the  burden 
of  his  suffering  he  wishes  this  much :  to  be  freed  from 
the  agonizing  consciousness  of  the  perishing  personality, 
and  to  pass  over  to  another  kind  of  existence. 

Man's  entrance  into  life  and  Hfe  itself  are  like  what 
takes  place  with  a  horse  which  the  master  takes  out  of  the 

301 


302  ON    LIFE 

stable  and  hitches  to  a  wagon.  The  horse,  upon  coming 
out  of  the  stable  and  seeing  the  light  and  feeling  its  free- 
dom, imagines  that  life  lies  in  this  freedom,  but  it  is 
hitched  to  the  wagon  and  the  reins  are  pulled.  It  feels 
a  load  at  its  back,  and  if  it  thinks  that  its  hfe  consists  in 
running  at  large,  it  struggles,  and  falls,  and  at  times  is 
killed.  If  it  -is  not  killed,  it  has  but  two  ways  out :  either 
it  will  pull  the  load,  and  will  find  out  that  the  load  is  not 
so  heavy  and  the  pulling  not  a  torture,  but  a  pleasure,  or 
it  will  become  unmanageable,  and  then  the  master  will  take 
it  to  the  treadmill,  will  tie  it  with  a  rope  to  the  wall,  and 
the  wheel  will  begin  to  turn  under  it,  and  it  will  walk  in 
the  darkness  in  one  spot  and  suffer,  but  its  strength  will 
not  be  lost  in  vain :  it  will  do  its  unwilliog  labour,  and 
the  law  will  be  accomplished  upon  it.  The  only  differ- 
ence will  be,  that  the  first  will  work  cheerfully,  and  the 
second  unwillingly  and  painfully. 

"  But  what  is  this  personality  for,  whose  good  I,  the 
man,  must  renounce,  in  order  that  I  may  obtain  life?" 
say  people  who  recognize  their  animal  existence  as  life. 
"  Why  is  this  consciousness  of  personality  given  to  man, 
if  it  is  opposed  to  the  manifestation  of  the  true  life  ? " 

This  question  may  be  answered  by  a  similar  question, 
which  an  animal  striving  after  its  aims  of  preserving  its 
life  and  species  might  put. 

For  what  purpose,  it  would  ask,  are  this  matter  and  its 
laws,  mechanical,  physical,  chemical,  and  other  laws,  with 
which  it  has  to  struggle,  in  order  that  it  may  attain  its 
ends  ?  "  If  it  is  my  vocation,"  the  animal  would  say,  "  to 
materiahze  the  life  of  the  animal,  why  are  there  so  many 
barriers  which  I  must  overcome  ?  " 

It  is  clear  to  us  that  all  matter  and  its  laws,  with  which 
the  animal  struggles,  aud  which  it  subjects  to  itself  for 
the  existence  of  its  animal  personahty,  are  not  barriers, 
but  means  for  the  attainment  of  its  ends.  The  animal 
lives  by  nothing  but  the  transformation  of  matter  and  by 


ON   LIFE  303 

its  laws.  Even  so  it  is  in  the  life  of  man.  The  animal 
personality,  in  which  man  finds  himself  and  which  he  is 
called  to  submit  to  his  rational  consciousness,  is  not  a 
barrier,  but  a  means  for  attaining  the  aims  of  his  good : 
the  animal  personality  is  for  man  that  tool  with  which  he 
works.  The  animal  personality  is  for  man  that  spade 
which  is  given  to  the  rational  being  that  it  may  dig  with 
it  and,  digging,  dull  it  and  sharpen  it  again,  and  waste  it 
away,  but  not  to  clean  it  and  put  it  away.  It  is  the 
talent  given  him  for  increase,  and  not  to  be  hid  in  the 
ground. 

"  He  that  tindeth  his  life  shall  lose  it ;  and  he  that 
loseth  his  life  for  my  sake  shall  find  it."  In  these  words 
it  says  that  it  is  impossible  to  keep  what  must  perish  and 
perishes  without  cessation,  and  that  only  by  renouncing 
what  perishes  and  must  perish,  —  our  animal  personahty, 
do  we  get  our  true  life,  which  does  not  perish  and  cannot 
perish.  It  says  that  our  true  life  begins  only  when  we 
cease  regarding  as  life  what  has  not  been  and  could  not 
be  life  for  us,  —  our  animal  existence.  It  says  that  he 
who  will  keep  the  spade,  which  he  has  for  the  purpose  of 
obtaining  by  it  food  for  the  sustenance  of  his  life,  will, 
by  saving  the  spade,  lose  both  his  food  and  his  life. 


XVII. 

BIKTH    BY    THE    SPIRIT 

"  You  must  be  born  again,"  says  Christ.  Not  that  man 
is  ordered  by  any  one  to  be  born  anew,  but  that  man  is 
inevitably  brought  to  it.  To  have  life,  he  must  be  born 
again  in  this  existence  through  his  rational  consciousness. 

The  rational  consciousness  is  given  to  man  in  order 
that  he  may  place  his  life  in  that  good  which  is  revealed 
to  him  through  his  rational  consciousness.  He  who 
places  his  life  in  this  good,  has  life ;  but  he  who  does  not 
place  his  life  in  it,  but  in  the  good  of  the  animal  person- 
ality, by  this  very  fact  deprives  himself  of  life.  In  this 
consists  the  definition  of  life  as  given  by  Christ. 

Men  who  recognize  as  life  their  striving  after  the  good 

of  personality,  hear  these  words  and,  not  that  they  do  not 

acknowledge  them,  —  they  do  not  understand  them,  and 

cannot  understand  them.     These  words  appear  to  them 

either  meaningless,  or  meaning  very  little,  —  designating 

a  certain  turgidly  sentimental  and  mystical  mood,  as  they 

like  to  call  it.     They  cannot  understand  the  meaning  of 

these  words,  which  express  an  explanation  of  a  condition 

which  is  incomprehensible  to  them,  just  as  a  dry,  intact 

seed  could  not  comprehend  the  condition  of  a  moist  and 

germinating  seed.     For  the  dry  kernels  the  sun,  which 

with  its  beams  shines  on  the  seed  springing  into  life,  is 

only  a    meaningless   incident,  —  a  little  more  heat  and 

light ;  but  for  the  germinating  seed  it  is  the  cause  of  birth 

to  life.    Even  so  for  men,  who  have  not  reached  the  inner 

contradiction  of  the  animal  personality  and  the  rational 

304 


ON   LIFE  305 

consciousness,  the  light  of  the  sun  of  reason  is  only  a 
meaningless  incident  and  sentimental,  mystical  words. 
The  sun  brings  only  those  to  life  in  whom  life  has  already 
begun  to  germinate. 

No  one  has  ever  found  out  how  it  germinates,  why, 
when,  where,  not  only  in  man,  but  also  in  the  animal 
and  the  plant.  Of  its  germination  in  man  Christ  has  said 
that  no  one  knows  this,  nor  ever  can  know. 

Indeed,  what  can  man  know  of  how  life  is  germinating 
in  him  ?  Life  is  the  light  of  men,  life  is  life,  —  the  be- 
ginning of  everything ;  how,  then,  can  mau  know  how 
it  germinates  ?  What  germinates  and  perishes  for  man 
is  that  which  does  not  live,  which  is  manifested  in  time 
and  space ;  but  the  true  life  is,  and  so,  as  far  as  man  is 
concerned,  it  can  neither  germinate  nor  perish. 


XVIII. 

THE   DEMANDS    OF    THE    RATIONAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

Yes,  the  rational  consciousness  tells  man  indubitably 
and  incontrovertibly  that  with  that  structure  of  the  world 
which  he  knows  out  of  his  personality,  there  can  be  no 
good  for  him,  for  his  personality.  His  life  is  a  desire  for 
the  good  for  himself,  yes,  for  himself,  and  he  sees  that 
this  good  is  impossible.  But,  strange  to  say,  though  he 
sees  unquestionably  that  this  good  is  impossible  for  him, 
he  none  the  less  lives  with  the  one  desire  for  this  impos- 
sible good,  —  the  good  for  himself  alone. 

A  man  with  an  awakened  (only  an  awakened)  rational 
consciousness,  which  has  not  yet  subdued  the  animal 
personality,  if  he  does  not  kill  himself,  lives  only  in  order 
that  he  may  realize  this  impossible  good :  he  lives  and 
acts  that  only  he  himself  may  obtain  the  good,  that  all 
men  and  even  all  beings  may  live  and  work  so  as  to  fur- 
nish him  with  comfort  and  pleasure,  and  that  he  shall 
experience  no  suffering  and  no  death. 

Strange  to  say,  though  experience,  and  the  observation 
of  the  lives  of  all  who  surround  him,  and  reason  show 
incontestably  to  each  man  that  it  is  unattainable  and  that 
it  is  impossible  to  compel  other  living  beings  to  stop  lov- 
ing themselves,  and  to  love  only  him,  —  in  spite  of  this, 
the  life  of  each  man  consists  only  in  this,  that  by  wealth, 
power,  honour,  glory,  flattery,  deceit,  in  one  way  or  an- 
other, he  may  compel  other  beings  to  live,  not  for  them- 
selves, but  for  him  alone,  —  to  compel  all  beings  to  love 
not  themselves,  but  him  alone. 

806 


ON  LIFE  807 

Men  have  done  all  they  can  with  this  aim  in  view,  and 
at  the  same  time  they  see  that  they  do  the  impossible. 
"  My  life  is  a  striving  after  the  good,"  man  says  to  himself. 
"  The  good  is  possible  for  me  only  when  all  will  love  me 
more  than  themselves;  but  all  beings  love  themselves 
only,  —  consequently,  all  I  do  in  order  to  compel  them  to 
love  me  is  useless.  It  is  useless,  but  I  can  do  nothing 
else." 

Ages  pass :  men  find  out  the  distance  from  the  lumi- 
naries, deteiiuine  their  weight,  find  out  the  composition  of 
the  sun  aud  the  stars,  but  the  question  as  to  how  the 
demands  of  the  personal  good  are  to  be  harmonized  with 
the  life  of  the  world,  which  excludes  the  possibility  of 
this  good,  remains  for  the  majority  of  men  just  as  insol- 
uble a  question  as  it  was  for  men  five  thousand  years 
ago. 

The  rational  consciousness  says  to  each  man :  "  Yes, 
you  can  have  the  good,  but  only  when  all  will  love  you 
more  than  themselves."  And  the  same  rational  conscious- 
ness shows  man  that  it  cannot  be,  because  they  all  love 
themselves  alone.  And  so  the  only  good,  which  is  re- 
vealed to  man  by  his  rational  consciousness,  is  again  con- 
cealed by  it. 

Ages  pass,  and  the  riddle  about  the  good  of  man's  Hfe 
remains  the  same  insoluble  riddle  for  the  majority  of  men. 
Meanwhile  the  riddle  has  been  solved  long  ago,  and  all 
those  who  learn  the  answer  to  the  riddle  always  marvel  how 
it  is  they  did  not  themselves  solve  it :  it  seems  to  them 
that  they  knew  it  long  ago,  but  only  forgot  it,  —  so  simple 
and  so  obtrusive  is  the  solution  of  the  riddle,  which  has 
seemed  so  difficult  amidst  the  false  teachings  of  our 
world. 

Do  you  want  all  to  live  for  you,  and  all  to  love  you 
more  than  themselves  ?  There  is  but  one  condition  under 
which  your  wish  may  be  fulfilled.  It  is  that  condition 
when  all  beiugs  shall  Hve  for  the  good  of  others  and  shall 


308  ON    LIFE 

love  others  more  than  themselves.  Only  then  you  and 
all  beings  would  be  loved  by  all,  and  you  would  among 
their  number  receive  the  good  which  you  desire.  But  if 
the  good  is  possible  for  you  only  when  all  beings  love  you 
more  than  themselves,  you  also,  as  a  living  being,  must 
love  other  beings  more  than  yourself. 

Only  with  such  conditions  are  the  good  and  the  life  of 
man  possible,  and  only  with  this  condition  is  that  des- 
troyed which  poisoned  man's  life,  —  the  struggle  of  the 
beings,  the  agony  of  sufferings,  and  the  terror  of  death. 

Indeed,  what  is  it  that  formed  the  impossibihty  of  the 
personal  existence  ?  In  the  first  place,  the  struggle 
among  themselves  of  the  beings  seeking  their  personal 
good.  In  the  second  place,  the  deception  of  pleasures, 
which  leads  to  waste  of  hfe,  to  satiety,  and  to  sufferings, 
and,  in  the  third  place,  death.  But  we  need  only  admit 
mentally  that  man  may  exchange  the  striving  after  the 
good  of  his  personality  for  the  striving  after  the  good  of 
other  beings,  in  order  that  the  impossibihty  of  the  good 
be  destroyed,  and  that  the  good  appear  to  man  as  accessi- 
ble. Looking  at  the  world  from  his  notion  of  life  as  a 
striving  after  the  personal  good,  man  saw  in  the  world  an 
irrational  struggle  of  beings  destroying  one  another.  But 
he  needs  only  acknowledge  his  life  to  consist  in  the  striv- 
ing after  the  good  of  others,  in  order  that  he  may  see 
something  quite  different  in  the  world  :  by  the  side  of  the 
incidental  phenomena  of  the  struggle  of  the  beings  —  a 
constant  mutual  service  of  these  beings,  a  service  without 
which  the  existence  of  the  world  is  unthinkable. 

We  need  only  admit  this,  and  all  our  former  senseless 
activity  which  is  directed  upon  the  unattainable  good  of 
personality  gives  way  to  another  activity,  which  is  in 
harmony  with  the  law  of  the  world  and  is  directed  upon 
the  attainment  of  the  greatest  possible  good  for  oneself 
and  for  the  world. 

Another  cause  of  the  wretchedness  of  the  personal  life 


ON   LIFE  309 

and  of  the  impossibility  of  man's  good  was  this,  —  the  illu- 
soriness  of  the  pleasures  of  personality,  which  wasted  life 
and  led  to  satiety  and  suftering.  Man  need  only  recognize 
his  life  as  consisting  in  the  striving  after  the  good  of  others, 
and  the  illusory  thirst  of  enjoyments  is  destroyed ;  but 
the  idle  and  agonizing  activity,  which  is  directed  to  the 
filling  of  the  bottomless  barrel  of  the  animal  activity, 
gives  way  to  an  activity,  in  accord  with  the  laws  of 
reason,  directed  toward  sustaining  the  hfe  of  other  beings, 
an  activity  necessary  for  his  good  ;  and  the  agony  of  the 
personal  suffering,  which  destroys  the  activity  of  man, 
gives  way  to  the  feeling  of  compassion  for  others,  which 
calls  to  life  an  unquestionably  fruitful  and  most  joyful 
activity. 

The  third  cause  of  the  wretchedness  of  the  personal  life 
was  the  dread  of  death.  Man  needs  only  recognize  his 
life  as  not  consisting  in  the  good  of  his  animal  person- 
ality, but  in  the  good  of  other  beings,  and  the  scarecrow 
of  death  for  ever  disappears  from  his  eyes. 

The  dread  of  death  is  due  only  to  the  fear  of  losing  the 
good  of  life  at  its  carnal  death.  But  if  man  could  place 
his  good  in  the  good  of  other  beings,  that  is,  if  he  loved 
them  more  than  himself,  death  would  not  present  itself 
to  him  as  that  cessation  of  the  good  and  of  life,  as  which 
it  presents  itself  to  a  man  who  hves  only  for  himself.  To 
a  man  living  for  others  death  could  not  present  itself  as 
a  cessation  of  the  good  and  of  hfe,  because  the  good  and 
life  of  other  beings  is  not  only  not  destroyed  by  the  life 
of  a  man  who  serves  them,  but  very  frequently  is  in- 
creased and  strengthened  by  the  sacrifice  of  his  hfe. 


XIX. 

THE   CONFIRMATION   OF    THE    DEMANDS   OF    THE   RATIONAL 

CONSCIOUSNESS 

"  But  this  is  not  life,"  replies  the  provoked  erring 
human  consciousness.  "  This  is  a  renunciation  of  life, 
suicide."  "  I  know  nothing  of  the  kind,"  replies  the 
rational  consciousness  :  "  I  know  that  such  is  man's  life, 
and  that  there  is  no  other  and  can  be  no  other.  I  know 
more  than  this  :  I  know  that  such  a  life  is  both  life  and 
the  good  for  man  and  for  the  whole  world.  I  know  that 
with  the  former  view  of  the  world,  my  hfe  and  the  life  of 
everything  existing  was  evil  and  absurd  ;  but  with  this 
view  it  appears  as  a  realization  of  that  law  of  reason 
which  is  implanted  in  man.  I  know  that  the  greatest, 
infinitely  increasable  good  of  the  hfe  of  each  being  may 
be  obtained  only  by  this  law  of  each  man  serving  all,  and 
all  men  each." 

"  But  if  this  may  be  a  thinkable  law,  it  is  not  a  law  of 
reality,"  replies  the  provoked  erring  consciousness  of  man. 
"  Others  do  not  love  me  more  than  themselves,  and  so  I 
cannot  love  them  more  than  myself  and  for  their  sake 
deprive  myself  of  pleasures  and  submit  to  sufferings.  I 
have  no  business  with  the  law  of  reason ;  I  want  enjoy- 
ments for  myself  and  liberation  from  sufferings  for 
myself.  Now  there  exists  a  struggle  of  the  beings  among 
themselves,  and  if  I  alone  will  not  struggle,  others  will 
crush  me.  It  makes  no  difference  to  me  by  what  road  the 
greatest  welfare  of  all  is  mentally  attained,  —  I  now  need 

the  actual  good  for  myself,"  says  the  false  consciousness. 

310 


ON    LIFE  311 

"  I  know  nothing  about  this,"  replies  the  rational  con- 
sciousness. "  All  I  know  is  that  that  which  you  call  your 
enjoyments  will  be  a  good  for  you  only  when  you  will 
not  take  them  yourself,  but  others  will  give  them  to  you  ; 
and  your  enjoyments  will  be  superfluous  and  a  source  of 
suffering,  as  they  now  are,  when  you  shall  seize  them 
yourself.  You  will  be  freed  from  actual  sufferings  only 
when  others  shall  free  you  from  them,  and  not  you  your- 
self, as  you  now  do,  when  for  fear  of  imaginary  sufferings 
you  deprive  yourself  of  life  itself. 

"  I  know  that  the  life  of  personality,  a  life  which 
demands  that  all  should  love  me  alone,  and  that  I  should 
love  myself  only,  and  which  would  offer  me  the  greatest 
number  of  enjoyments  and  would  liberate  me  from  suffer- 
ings and  death,  is  the  greatest  unceasing  suffering.  The 
more  I  shall  love  myself  and  struggle  with  others,  the 
more  they  will  hate  me  and  the  more  fiercely  will  they 
struggle  with  me :  the  more  I  shall  defend  myself  against 
suffering,  the  more  painful  will  they  be  ;  the  more  I  shall 
defend  myself  against  death,  the  more  terrible  will  it  be. 

"  I  know  that,  no  matter  what  a  man  may  do,  he  will 
not  receive  any  good  unless  he  will  live  in  conformity 
with  the  law  of  his  life.  But  the  law  of  his  hfe  is  not 
struggle,  but,  on  the  contrary,  a  mutual  service  of  the 
beings." 

"  But  I  know  life  only  in  my  personahty.  It  is  impos- 
sible for  me  to  assume  my  life  in  the  good  of  other 
beings." 

"  I  know  nothing  of  the  kind,"  says  the  rational  con- 
sciousness :  "  I  know  only  this  much,  that  my  life  and  the 
life  of  the  world,  which  heretofore  presented  themselves 
to  me  as  an  evil  absurdity,  now  present  themselves  to  me 
as  one  rational  whole,  living  and  stri\'ing  after  one  and 
the  same  good,  through  subjection  to  one  and  the  same 
law  of  reason,  which  I  know  in  myself." 

"  But  this  is  impossible  for  me ! "  says  the  erring  con- 


312  ON   LIFE 

sciousness.  And  yet  there  is  no  man  who  has  not  done 
this  very  impossible  thing,  who  has  not  looked  for  the 
best  good  of  his  life  in  this  very  impossible  thing. 

"  It  is  impossible  to  seek  one's  good  in  the  good  of 
other  beiags,"  —  and  yet  there  is  no  man  who  does  not 
know  a  state  in  which  the  good  of  the  beings  outside  of 
him  becomes  his  good.  "  It  is  impossible  to  seek  the  good 
in  labours  and  sufferings  for  another  person,"  —  but  let  a 
man  abandon  himself  to  this  feeling  of  compassion,  and 
the  enjoyments  of  personality  lose  all  meaning  for  him, 
and  the  force  of  his  life  passes  into  labours  and  sufferings 
for  the  good  of  others ;  and  the  sufferings  and  labours 
become  a  good  for  him.  "  It  is  impossible  to  sacrifice 
one's  life  for  the  good  of  others,"  but  a  man  need  only 
experience  this  feeling,  and  death  is  not  only  not  visible 
and  terrible  to  him,  but  appears  to  him  as  the  highest 
accessible  good. 

A  rational  man  cannot  help  but  see  that,  if  he  admits 
mentally  the  possibility  of  an  exchange  of  his  striving 
after  his  own  good  for  the  striving  after  the  good  of  other 
beings,  his  life,  instead  of  its  former  senselessness  and 
wretchedness,  becomes  rational  and  good.  Nor  can  he 
help  seeing  that,  by  admitting  the  same  comprehension  of 
life  in  other  men  and  beings  as  well,  the  life  of  the  whole 
world,  instead  of  what  before  appeared  as  madness  and 
cruelty,  now  becomes  the  highest  rational  good  which 
man  can  at  all  wish  for :  instead  of  the  former  meaning- 
lessness  and  aimlessness,  it  now  acquires  for  him  a 
rational  meaning.  To  such  a  man  the  aim  of  the  world's 
life  appears  in  an  endless  enlightenment  and  union  of  the 
beings  of  the  world,  toward  which  life  proceeds,  and  in 
which  at  first  men,  and  then  all  beings,  submitting  more 
and  more  to  the  law  of  reason,  will  understand  (what 
now  is  given  to  man  alone  to  understand)  that  the  good 
of  hfe  is  attained  not  by  the  striving  of  each  being  after 
its  personal  good,  but  by  the  striving,  in  conformity  with 


ON    LIFE  313 

the  law  of  reason,  of  each  being  after  the  good  of  all 
others. 

More  than  this :  if  man  only  admits  the  possibility  of 
an  exchange  of  the  striving  after  one's  own  good  for  the 
striving  after  the  good  of  other  beings,  he  cannot  help 
but  see  this  also,  that  this  same  gradual,  increasing  renun- 
ciation of  his  personality  and  the  transference  of  the  aim 
of  his  activity  from  himself  into  other  beings  is  the  for- 
ward movement  of  humanity  and  of  those  living  beings 
which  are  nearest  to  man.  Man  cannot  help  but  see  in 
history  that  the  movement  of  the  general  life  does  not 
consist  in  the  intensification  and  increase  of  the  struggle 
of  the  beings  among  themselves,  but,  on  the  contrary,  in 
the  diminution  of  the  discord  and  the  weakening  of  the 
strugi^le :  that  the  movement  of  life  consists  in  this  alone, 
that  the  world,  from  hostility  and  discord,  through  sub- 
jection to  reason,  passes  more  and  more  to  concord  and 
union.  Admitting  this,  man  cannot  help  but  see  that 
those  who  devoured  one  another  no  longer  devour  one 
another-;  that  those  who  killed  captives  and  their  own 
children  no  longer  kill  them ;  that  the  military  who  used 
to  pride  themselves  on  murder  no  longer  boast  of  it ;  that 
those  who  established  slavery  now  abolish  it ;  that  men 
who  used  to  kill  animals  are  beginning  to  tame  them  and 
kill  them  less ;  that  instead  of  feeding  on  the  flesh  of 
animals  men  now  begin  to  feed  on  their  eggs  and  milk ; 
and  that  the  destruction  in  the  world  of  plants  is  growing 
less.  Man  sees  that  the  best  men  of  humanity  condemn 
the  search  after  enjoyments  and  admonish  people  to  be 
temperate,  wliile  the  best  men,  who  are  extolled  by  pos- 
terity, show  examples  of  sacrifices  of  their  existence  for 
the  good  of  others.  Man  sees  that  what  he  has  admitted 
only  on  account  of  the  demands  of  reason  is  taking  place 
in  reality  in  the  world  and  is  confirmed  by  the  past  life 
of  humanity. 

More   than  this:  more  powerfully  and  more  convinc- 


314 


ON   LIFE 


ingly  than  by  reason  and  history,  this  same  thing,  as 
though  from  another  source,  is  pointed  out  to  man  by  the 
striving  of  his  heart,  which,  as  to  an  immediate  good,  is 
drawing  him  on  to  the  same  activity  which  reason  points 
out  to  him,  and  which  in  his  heart  is  expressed  by  love. 


XX. 

THE   DEMAND   OF  PEESONALITY   SEEMS   INCOMPATIBLE   WITH 
THE    DEMAND    OF    THE    KATIONAL   CONSCIOUSNESS 

Reason,  and  reflection,  and  history,  and  the  inner  feel- 
ing, —  everything,  it  seems,  convinces  man  of  the  correct- 
ness of  such  a  comprehension  of  hfe :  but  to  a  man  who 
is  brought  up  in  the  teaching  of  the  world  it  none  the 
less  appears  that  the  gratification  of  the  demands  of  his 
rational  consciousness  and  of  his  feeling  cannot  be  the 
law  of  his  life. 

"  Not  to  struggle  with  others  for  one's  own  good,  not 
to  seek  enjoyments,  not  to  ward  off  suffering,  and  not  to 
fear  death  !  But  this  is  impossible  :  it  is  the  renunciation 
of  all  life !  And  how  can  I  renounce  life,  since  I  feel  the 
demands  of  my  personality  and  with  my  reason  recognize 
the  legality  of  these  demands,"  the  cultured  people  say 
with  full  assurance. 

Now  here  is  a  remarkable  phenomenon.  Simple  work- 
ing people,  who  have  exercised  their  reasoning  capacity 
but  a  little,  hardly  ever  defend  the  demands  of  personal- 
ity and  always  feel  in  themselves  the  demands  which  are 
contrary  to  the  demands  of  personality  ;  but  the  full  ne- 
gation of  the  demands  of  the  rational  consciousness  and, 
above  all,  the  rejection  of  the  legality  of  these  demands 
and  the  defence  of  the  rights  of  personality  are  to  be 
found  only  among  rich  and  refined  men,  who  are  trained 
in  reasoning. 

An  intellectual,  pampered,  idle  person  will  always  prove 
that  personahty  has  its  inalienable  rights ;  but  a  hungry 

315 


316 


ON   LIFE 


man  will  not  prove  that  a  man  must  eat,  —  he  knows  that 
all  men  know  that,  and  that  it  is  impossible  to  prove  or 
disprove  it :  he  will  simply  eat. 

This  is  due  to  the  fact  that  a  simple,  a  so-called  un- 
cultured, man,  who  has  worked  with  his  body  all  his  hfe, 
has  not  distorted  his  reason  and  has  retained  it  in  its 
purity  and  force. 

But  a  man  who  has  all  his  life  thought  not  merely  of 
insignificant,  trifling  matters,  but  also  of  such  as  are  im- 
proper for  a  man  to  think  of,  has  distorted  his  reason  :  it 
is  not  free  in  him.  His  reason  is  occupied  with  improper 
matters,  with  the  consideration  of  the  needs  of  his  person- 
ality,—  with  their  development  and  increase,  and  with 
the  invention  of  means  for  their  gratification. 

"But  I  feel  the  demands  of  my  personality,  and  so 
these  demands  are  legitimate,"  say  the  so-called  cultured 
people,  who  are  educated  by  the  worldly  teaching. 

Nor  can  they  help  feeling  the  demands  of  their  person- 
ality. The  whole  life  of  these  people  is  directed  upon  the 
supposed  increase  of  the  good  of  personahty,  and  the  good 
of  personality  appears  to  them  to  be  in  the  gratification 
of  needs.  By  the  needs  of  personality  they  mean  those 
conditions  of  the  existence  of  personality  toward  which 
they  have  directed  their  reason.  Now  these  cognized 
needs,  —  such  as  their  reason  is  directed  upon,  —  in  con- 
sequence of  this  cognition  grow  infinitely,  and  the  gratifi- 
cation of  these  increasing  needs  shields  from  them  the 
demands  of  their  true  life. 

The  so-called  social  science  puts  at  the  basis  of  its  in- 
vestigations the  study  of  the  needs  of  man,  forgetting  the 
circumstance,  so  inconvenient  for  this  teaching,  that  either 
a  man  has  no  needs  whatsoever,  as  in  the  case  of  a  man 
who  commits  suicide  or  starves  himself,  or  there  is  liter- 
ally an  infinite  number  of  them. 

There  are  as  many  needs  of  the  existence  of  the  animal 
man  as  there  are  sides  of  this  existence ;  and  there  are  as 


ON   LIFE  317 

many  sides  as  there  are  radii  iu  the  globe :  there  are  the 
needs  of  food,  drink,  breathing,  and  the  exercise  of  all  the 
muscles  and  nerves ;  the  needs  of  labour,  rest,  pleasure, 
and  domestic  life ;  the  needs  of  science,  art,  religion,  and 
their  diversity ;  the  needs  in  all  these  relations  of  the 
child,  the  youth,  the  adult,  the  old  man,  the  girl,  the  ma- 
ture woman,  the  old  woman ;  the  needs  of  the  Chinaman, 
the  Parisian,  the  Eussian,  the  Laplander ;  the  needs  which 
correspond  to  the  habits  of  races,  to  the  diseases.  .  .  . 

We  may  count  them  up  to  the  end  of  time,  without 
mentioning  all  those  in  which  the  needs  of  man's  personal 
existence  consists.  All  the  conditions  of  existence  may 
be  needs,  and  of  conditions  of  existence  there  is  an  infinite 
number. 

However,  by  needs  we  mean  only  those  conditions 
which  are  cognized ;  but  the  cognized  conditions,  the 
moment  they  are  cognized,  lose  their  actual  meaning  and 
receive  that  exaggerated  significance  given  to  them  by  the 
reason  which  is  directed  upon  them,  and  conceal  the  true 
life. 

What  is  called  needs,  that  is,  the  conditions  of  man's 
animal  conditions,  may  be  compared  with  an  endless 
number  of  expansible  globules,  of  which  we  may  imagine 
a  body  to  consist.  All  the  globules  are  equal  and  occupy 
their  own  places,  without  exerting  any  pressure  on  one 
another  as  long  as  the  globules  are  not  expanded :  even 
so  all  needs  are  equal  and  have  their  place,  and  they  are 
not  felt  morbidly  as  long  as  they  are  not  cognized.  But 
it  is  enough  to  expand  one  globule  until  it  occupies  more 
place  than  the  rest  taken  together,  and  it  will  press  against 
them  and  be  pressed  against.  The  same  is  true  of  the 
needs :  the  rational  consciousness  need  but  be  directed 
upon  one  of  them,  and  this  cognized  need  occupies  all  life 
and  causes  man's  whole  being  to  sufifer. 


XXI. 

WHAT  IS  DEMANDED  IS  NOT  A  RENUNCIATION  OF  PERSON- 
ALITY, BUT  ITS  SUBJECTION  TO  THE  RATIONAL  CON- 
SCIOUSNESS 

Yes,  the  affirmation  that  man  does  not  feel  the  de- 
mands of  his  rational  consciousness,  but  only  the  needs  of 
personality,  is  nothing  but  an  assertion  that  our  animal 
appetites,  to  the  intensification  of  which  we  have  directed 
our  whole  reason,  have  taken  possession  of  us  and  conceal 
from  us  our  true  human  life.  The  weeds  of  the  rankly 
growing  vices  have  choked  the  sprouts  of  the  true  life. 

How  can  it  be  otherwise  in  our  world,  since  it  has  been 
asserted  outright  by  those  who  regard  themselves  as  the 
teachers  of  others  that  the  highest  perfection  of  the  indi- 
vidual is  an  all-sided  development  of  the  refined  needs  of 
his  personality ;  that  the  good  of  the  masses  consists 
in  this,  that  they  should  have  as  many  needs  as  possible 
and  should  be  able  to  gratify  them ;  that  the  good  of  men 
consists  in  the  gratification  of  their  needs. 

How  can  people  who  are  brought  up  in  such  a  teaching 
help  affirming  that  they  do  not  feel  the  demands  of  the 
rational  consciousness,  but  only  the  needs  of  personality  ? 
How  can  they  feel  the  demands  of  reason,  when  all  their 
reason  has  gone  without  a  residue  on  the  intensification  of 
their  appetites  ?  And  how  can  they  renounce  the  de- 
mands of  their  appetites,  when  these  appetites  have 
swallowed  their  whole  hfe  ? 

"The  renunciation  of  personality  is  impossible,"  these 
men  generally    say,  intentionally   trying  to  distort  the 

318 


ON   LIFE  319 

question  and  substituting  the  idea  of  renunciation  for 
the  idea  of  the  subjection  of  personality  to  the  law  of 
reason, 

"  It  is  unnatural,"  they  say,  "  and  so  impossible." 

But  no  one  is  saying  anything  about  the  renunciation 
of  personality.  Personality  is  for  a  rational  man  tlie 
same  that  breathing  and  the  circulation  of  the  blood  are 
for  the  animal  personality.  How  can  the  animal  person- 
ality renounce  the  circulation  of  the  blood  ?  It  is  impossi- 
ble even  to  speak  of  this.  Even  so  it  is  impossible  for  a 
rational  man  to  speak  of  the  renunciation  of  personality. 
Personality  is  for  a  rational  man  just  as  important  a  con- 
dition of  his  life  as  the  circulation  of  the  blood  is  a  condi- 
tion of  the  existence  of  his  animal  personality. 

Personality,  as  an  animal  personality,  cannot  even  put 
forth  any  demands,  and  it  never  does.  These  demands 
are  put  forth  by  the  falsely  directed  reason,  which  is 
directed,  not  upon  guiding  life,  not  upon  illuminating  it, 
but  on  fanning  the  appetites  of  personality. 

The  demands  of  the  animal  personality  can  always  be 
gratified.  A  man  cannot  say:  "What  shall  I  eat?  or 
what  shall  I  put  on  ? "  All  these  needs  are  secured  to 
man  as  much  as  they  are  to  a  bird  or  a  flower,  if  he  lives 
a  rational  life.  Indeed,  what  thinking  man  can  believe 
that  he  can  diminish  the  wretchedness  of  his  existence  by 
provisions  for  his  personality  ? 

The  wretchedness  of  man's  existence  is  not  due  to  the 
fact  that  he  is  a  personality,  but  to  the  fact  that  he  recog- 
nizes the  existence  of  his  personality  as  life  and  a  good. 
Only  in  this  case  do  there  appear  a  contradiction,  a  doub- 
ling, and  suffering  for  man. 

Man's  sufferings  begin  only  when  he  uses  the  force  of 
his  reason  for  the  intensification  and  enlargement  of  the 
endlessly  expanding  demands  of  personality,  in  order  that 
he  may  conceal  from  himself  the  demands  of  reason. 

It  is  impossible  and  unnecessary  to  renounce  personality, 


h 


320  ON    LIFE 

or  any  of  the  conditions  in  which  man  exists  ;  but  what 
one  can  and  must  do  is  not  to  recognize  these  conditions 
as  life  itself.  One  can  and  must  make  use  of  the  given 
conditions  of  life,  but  one  cannot  and  must  not  look  upon 
these  conditions  as  upon  an  aim  of  Hfe.  Not  to  renounce 
personality,  but  to  renounce  the  good  of  personality  and 
to  cease  recognizing  personality  as  life,  this  is  what  a  man 
must  do  in  order  that  he  may  return  to  tlie  oneness,  and 
in  order  that  the  good,  the  striving  after  which  forms  his 
life,  may  be  accessible  to  him. 

Ever  since  remote  antiquity  the  teacliing  that  the 
recognition  of  the  life  in  the  personality  is  a  destruction 
of  life,  and  that  the  renunciation  of  the  good  of  personality 
is  the  only  way  for  obtaining  life,  has  been  preached  by 
the  great  teachers  of  humanity. 

"  Yes,  but  what  is  this  ?  It  is  Buddhism,"  men  of  our 
time  generally  reply  to  this.  "  It  is  Nirvana,  it  is  standing 
on  a  pillar." 

And,  having  said  this,  it  appears  to  the  men  of  our 
time  that  they  have  in  the  most  successful  manner  possi- 
ble rebutted  what  all  know  very  well,  and  what  cannot  be 
concealed  from  any  one,  —  that  the  personal  life  is 
wretched  and  has  no  meaning  whatever. 

"  This  is  Buddhism,  Nirvana,"  they  say,  and  it  seems  to 
them  that  with  these  words  they  have  rebutted  every- 
thing that  has  been  accepted  by  bilhons  of  people,  and 
that  each  of  us  knows  full  well  in  the  depth  of  his  heart,  — 
namely,  that  the  life  for  the  purposes  of  personality  is 
destructive  and  meaningless,  and  that,  if  there  is  any  way 
out  of  this  destructiveness  and  meaninglessness,  it  un- 
questionably leads  through  the  renunciation  of  the  good 
of  personality. 

They  are  not  in  the  least  troubled  by  the  facts  that  the 
greater  half  of  humanity  has  always  understood  life  in 
this  manner,  that  tlie  greatest  minds  have  comprehended 
life   in   the   same   way,  and   that   it  cannot  be  compre- 


ON    LIFE  321 

hended  otherwise.  They  are  so  convinced  that  if  all  the 
(juestions  of  life  are  not  solved  in  the  most  satisfactory 
iiuumer,  they  are  removed  by  telephones,  operettas,  bac- 
teriology, electric  light,  roburite,  etc.,  that  the  idea  of  the 
renunciation  of  the  good  of  the  personal  life  presents  itself 
to  them  only  as  an  echo  of  ancient  ignorance. 

In  the  meantime  the  unfortunate  people  do  not  sus- 
pect that  the  grossest  Hindoo,  who  for  years  stands  on 
one  leg  in  the  name  of  renouncing  the  good  of  personality 
for  the  sake  of  Nirvana,  is  incomparably  more  of  a  live 
man  than  they,  the  bestialized  men  of  our  contemporary 
European  society,  who  fly  over  the  whole  world  on  rail- 
roads and  in  the  electric  light  show  their  bestial  condition 
to  the  whole  world.  This  Hindoo  has  come  to  understand 
that  there  is  a  contradiction  between  the  hfe  of  personality 
and  the  rational  life,  and  he  solves  it  the  best  he  knows 
how ;  but  the  men  of  our  cultured  class  not  only  fail  to 
understand  this  contradiction,  but  even  do  not  believe 
that  it  exists. 

The  proposition  that  human  life  is  not  the  existence  of 
man's  personality,  acquired  by  the  millennial  spiritual 
labour  of  all  humanity,  has  become  for  man  (not  the  an- 
imal) in  the  moral  world  an  even  more  undoubted  and 
indestructible  truth  than  the  motion  of  the  earth  and  the 
laws  of  gravitation.  Every  thinking  person,  whether  he  be 
a  learned  man,  an  ignoramus,  an  old  man,  a  child,  under- 
stands and  knows  this :  it  is  concealed  only  from  the 
most  savage  people  in  Africa  and  Australia,  and  from 
the  brutalized  men  of  leisure  in  the  European  cities  and 
capitals.  This  truth  has  become  the  possession  of  human- 
ity and  if  humanity  does  not  retrograde  in  its  auxiliary 
knowledge  of  mechanics,  algebra,  astronomy,  it  will  still 
less  retrograde  in  its  fundamental  and  chief  knowledge 
of  the  determination  of  its  life.  It  is  impossible  to  forget 
and  wipe  out  from  the  consciousness  of  humanity  what  it 
has  carried  away  from  its  life  of  many  millenniums,  —  the 


322  ON    LIFE 

conviction  of  the  vanity,  meaninglessness,  and  wretched- 
ness of  the  personal  life.  The  attempt  at  reestabhshing 
the  antediluvial  savage  conception  of  hfe  as  personal 
existence,  with  which  the  so-called  science  of  our  Euro- 
pean world  is  occupied,  shows  only  more  obviously  the 
growth  of  the  rational  consciousness  of  humanity,  and 
makes  it  palpably  clear  that  humanity  has  outgrown  its 
baby  clothes.  Both  the  philosophical  theories  of  self- 
destruction  and  the  practice  of  suicides,  increasing  in  a 
terrible  proportion,  show  how  impossible  it  is  for  human- 
ity to  return  to  the  defunct  stage  of  consciousness. 

Life  as  personal  existence  has  been  outHved  by  humanity, 
and  it  is  impossible  to  return  to  it  and  to  forget  that 
man's  personal  existence  has  no  meaning.  No  matter 
what  we  may  write,  or  say,  or  discover,  no  matter  how 
our  personal  life  may  be  perfected,  the  negation  of  the 
possibility  of  the  good  of  personality  remains  an  imper- 
turbable truth  for  every  rational  man  of  our  time. 

"  And  yet  it  moves  ! "  It  is  not  a  question  of  rejecting 
the  propositions  of  a  Galileo  and  a  Copernicus,  and  in- 
venting some  Ptolemaic  circles,  —  they  can  no  longer  be 
invented,  —  but  of  going  on  and  making  further  deduc- 
tions from  the  proposition  which  has  already  entered  into 
the  consciousness  of  humanity.  The  same  is  true  of  the 
proposition  about  the  impossibihty  of  the  good  of  person- 
ality, as  expressed  by  the  Brahmins,  and  Buddha,  and 
Lao-tse,  and  Solomon,  and  the  Stoics,  and  all  the  true 
thinkers  of  humanity.  This  proposition  must  not  be 
concealed  from  ourselves,  nor  must  it  be  obviated  in 
every  manner  possible,  but  we  should  clearly  and  boldly 
recognize  it  and  make  the  further  deductions  from  it. 


XXIL 

THE  SENTIMENT  OF  LOVE  IS  THE  MANIFESTATION  OF  THE 
ACTIVITY  OF  PEKSONALITY  SUBJECTED  TO  THE  EA- 
TIONAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

A  RATIONAL  being  cannot  live  for  the  purposes  of 
personaKty.  This  is  impossible,  because  all  ways  are 
barred  for  it :  all  the  aims  toward  which  man's  animal 
personality  is  striving  are  obviously  inaccessible.  Eational 
consciousness  points  out  other  aims,  and  these  aims  are 
not  only  accessible,  but  also  give  full  satisfaction  to  man's 
rational  consciousness ;  at  first,  however,  under  the  in- 
fluence of  the  false  teaching  of  the  world,  it  appears  to 
man  that  these  aims  are  contrary  to  his  personality. 

No  matter  how  much  a  man,  educated  in  our  modern 
world,  with  developed,  exaggerated  appetites  of  personality, 
may  try  to  regard  himself  as  being  in  his  rational  ego,  he 
does  not  feel  in  this  ego  any  striving  after  life,  such  as 
he  feels  in  his  animal  personality.  The  rational  ego,  as  it 
were,  contemplates  life,  but  does  not  live  itself  and  has 
no  impulse  to  live.  The  rational  ego  does  not  experience 
any  striving  after  life,  but  the  animal  ego  must  suffer,  and 
so  there  is  but  one  thing  left  to  do,  —  to  be  hberated 
from  life. 

Thus  the  question  is  unscrupulously  solved  by  those 
negative  philosophers  of  our  time  (Schopenhauer,  Hart- 
mann),  who  negate  life  and  yet  remain  in  it,  instead  of 
utilizing  the  opportunity  to  leave  it.  And  thus  this 
question  is  conscientiously  solved  by  the  suicides,  when 
they  step  out  of  life,  which  presents  to  them  nothing  but 

323 


324  ON   LIFE 

evil.     Suicide  appears  to  them  as  the  only  way  out  from 
the  misapprehension  of  the  human  life  of  our  time. 

The  reasoning  of  pessimistic  philosophy  and  of  the  com- 
monest suicides  is  as  follows :  "  There  is  an  animal  ego, 
in  which  there  is  a  striving  after  life ;  this  ego  with  my 
striving  cannot  be  gratified ;  there  is  another,  a  rational 
ego,  in  which  there  is  no  striving  at  all  after  hfe,  and 
which  critically  contemplates  the  whole  false  love  of 
life  and  the  passion  of  the  animal  ego,  and  negates  it 
altogether. 

"  If  I  abandon  myself  to  the  first,  I  see  that  I  live 
senselessly  and  walk  toward  wretchedness,  sinking  deeper 
and  deeper  into  it.  If  I  abandon  myself  to  the  second, 
the  rational  ego,  there  is  left  in  me  no  striving  after  life. 
I  see  that  it  is  absurd  and  impossible  to  live  for  what 
alone  I  want  to  live  for,  that  is,  for  the  happiness  of 
personality ;  for  the  rational  consciousness  it  is,  indeed, 
possible  to  live,  but  I  see  no  cause  why  I  should,  and 
I  do  not  want  to.  To  serve  that  principle  from  which  I 
originate,  God  ?  What  for  ?  God,  if  there  is  one,  will  find 
enough  servants  without  me.  And  of  what  good  is  it  to 
me  ?  One  can  look  at  all  this  play  of  life  as  long  as  one 
does  not  get  tired  of  it ;  and  when  one  gets  tired  of  it 
one  can  go  away,  and  kill  oneself,  —  and  so  I  will  do." 

Such  is  the  contradictory  notion  of  life,  which  human- 
ity had  arrived  at  before  Solomon  aud  before  Buddha, 
and  to  which  its  false  teachers  of  our  time  want  to 
return. 

The  demands  of  personality  have  been  carried  to  the 
extreme  limits  of  madness.  The  awakening  reason  rejects 
them ;  but  the  demands  of  personalities  have  branched 
out  to  such  an  extent,  have  so  clogged  man's  conscious- 
ness, that  it  seems  to  him  that  reason  negates  the  whole 
life.  It  seems  to  him  that  nothing  will  be  left,  if  he 
rejects  from  the  consciousness  of  life  everything  which 
his  reason  negates.     He  no  longer  sees  what  is  left.     The 


ON    LIFE  325 

residue  —  that  residue  in  which  there  is  life  —  seems  to 
him  as  nothing. 

But  the  Hght  shines  in  darkness,  and  the  darkness 
cannot  comprehend  it ! 

The  teaching  of  truth  knows  this  dilemma,  —  either 
senseless  existence,  or  the  negation  of  it,  —  and  solves  it. 

The  teaching,  which  has  always  been  called  the  teach- 
ing of  the  good,  the  teaching  of  the  truth,  has  shown  to 
people  that  instead  of  their  deceptive  good,  which  they 
seek  for  their  animal  personality,  they  not  only  can  at 
some  time,  somewhere  receive,  but  always,  immediately, 
here,  have  an  inalienable,  real  good,  which  is  always 
accessible  to  them. 

This  good  is  not  merely  something  deduced  by  reason- 
ing, something  which  has  to  be  sought  somewhere,  a  good 
promised  somewhere  and  at  some  time,  but  that  familiar 
good  after  which  every  uncorrupted  human  soul  strives 
directly. 

All  men  know  from  their  first  years  of  childhood  that, 
in  addition  to  the  good  of  the  animal  personality,  there 
is  another,  better  good  of  life,  which  is  not  only  inde- 
pendent of  the  gratification  of  the  appetites  of  the  ani- 
mal personality,  but,  on  the  contrary,  is  the  greater,  the 
greater  the  renunciation  of  the  good  of  the  animal  per- 
sonality. 

This  feeling,  which  solves  all  the  contradictions  of  the 
human  life  and  gives  the  greatest  good  to  man,  is  known 
to  all  men.     This  feeling  is  love. 

Life  is  the  activity  of  the  animal  personality,  subjected 
to  the  law  of  reason.  Keason  is  that  law  to  which,  for  its 
own  good,  man's  animal  personality  must  be  submitted. 
Love  is  the  only  rational  activity  of  man. 

The  animal  personality  tends  toward  the  good ;  reason 
points  out  to  man  that  deceptiveuess  of  the  personal  good 
and  leaves  one  path.     The  activity  on  this  path  is  love. 

Man's  animal  personality  demands  the  good;  the  ra- 


326  ON  LIFE 

tional  consciousness  shows  man  the  wretchedness  of  all 
the  warring  beings :  it  shows  him  that  there  can  be  no 
good  for  his  animal  personality,  and  that  the  one  good, 
which  is  possible  for  him,  is  one  with  which  there  is  no 
struggle  with  other  beings,  nor  a  cessation  of  the  good,  nor 
satiety,  nor  the  vision  and  terror  of  death. 

And  as  though  it  were  a  key  specially  made  for  this 
lock,  man  finds  in  his  soul  a  feeling  which  gives  him  that 
very  goo'd,  which,  as  the  only  possible  one,  reason  points 
out  to  him.  This  feeling  not  only  solves  the  former  con- 
tradiction of  life,  but  also,  as  it  were,  in  this  very  contra- 
diction finds  the  possibility  of  its  manifestation. 

The  animal  personalities  want  to  make  use  of  man's 
personality  for  their  own  purposes ;  but  the  feehng  of 
love  draws  him  on  to  give  his  existence  for  the  benefit  of 
other  beings. 

The  animal  personality  suffers,  and  these  sufferings  and 
their  alleviation  form  the  chief  subject  of  the  activity  of 
love.  The  animal  personality,  striving  after  the  good, 
with  its  every  breath  tends  toward  evil,  —  toward  death, 
—  the  vision  of  which  has  impaired  every  good  of 
personahty.  But  the  feehng  of  love  not  only  destroys 
this  terror,  but  draws  man  toward  the  last  sacrifice  of  his 
carnal  existence  for  the  good  of  others. 


XXIII. 

THE  MANIFESTATION  OF  THE  FEELING  OF  LOVE  IS  IM- 
POSSIBLE FOR  MEN  WHO  DO  NOT  UNDERSTAND  THE 
MEANING    OF    THEIR    LIFE 

Every  man  knows  that  in  the  feehng  of  love  there 
is  something  especial,  which  is  capable  of  solving  all  the 
contradictious  of  life  and  of  giving  to  man  that  full  meas- 
ure of  the  good  in  the  striving  after  which  his  life  consists. 

"  But  this  feeling,  which  comes  but  rarely,  does  not  last 
long,  and  its  c(?nsequence  is  worse  sufferings,"  say  people 
who  do  not  understand  life. 

To  these  men  love  presents  itself,  not  as  that  one  legit- 
imate manifestation  of  life,  as  which  it  appears  to  rational 
consciousness,  but  only  as  one  of  a  thousand  different 
casualties  of  life,  —  it  presents  itself  as  one  of  those 
thousand  divers  moods  in  which  a  man  happens  to  be 
during  his  existence :  it  happens  that  a  man  plays  the 
dandy,  or  that  he  is  infatuated  with  science  or  with  art, 
or  that  he  is  infatuated  with  his  service,  with  ambition, 
with  acquisition,  or  that  he  loves  some  one.  The  mood 
of  love  presents  itself  to  men  who  do  not  comprehend 
life,  not  as  the  essence  of  human  life,  but  as  an  accidental 
mood,  —  which  is  as  independent  of  his  will  as  all  the 
others  to  which  man  is  subject  during  his  life.  Fre- 
quently we  have  occasion  to  read  or  hear  reflections  as  to 
love  being  a  certain  irregular,  agonizing  mood  which 
impairs  the  regular  current  of  life,  —  something  like 
what  must  appear  to  an  owl  when  the  sun  comes  out. 

These  people,  it  is  true,  feel  that  in  the  mood  of  love 

327 


328  ON    LIFE 

there  is  something  special,  something  more  important 
than  in  all  the  other  moods.  But,  as  they  do  not  under- 
stand hfe,  they  also  fail  to  understand  love,  and  the 
condition  of  love  appears  to  them  as  vsrretched  and  decep- 
tive as  all  other  conditions. 

"  To  love  ?     But  whom  ? 
It  is  not  worth  wliile  for  a  time, 
And  you  cannot  love  one  for  ever  ..." 

These  words  correctly  express  the  dim  consciousness  of 
men  that  in  love  there  is  salvation  from  the  calamities 
of  life,  and  that  something  which  alone  resembles  the 
true  good,  and  at  the  same  time  a  confession  that  for  men 
who  do  not  understand  life  love  cannot  be  an  anchor  of 
salvation.  There  is  no  one  to  love,  and  every  love  is 
unenduring.  And  so  love  could  be  a  good  only  if  there 
were  any  one  to  love,  and  if  there  were  one  who  could  be 
loved  for  ever.  But  as  such  a  one  does  not  exist,  there  is 
no  salvation  in  love,  and  love  is  just  such  deception  and 
such  suffering  as  everything  else. 

So,  and  not  otherwise,  love  can  be  understood  by  those 
who  teach  and  themselves  are  taught  to  believe  that  life 
is  nothing  but  animal  existence. 

For  such  people  love  does  not  even  correspond  to  the 
conception  which  we  all  involuntarily  connect  with  the 
word  love.  It  is  not  a  good  activity,  which  gives 
the  good  to  the  lover  and  to  him  who  is  loved.  Love  is 
frequently,  in  the  conception  of  men  who  recognize  life 
to  be  in  the  animal  personality,  the  same  feeling,  in  con- 
sequence of  which  one  mother,  for  the  sake  of  the  good  of 
her  babe,  takes  the  milk  away  from  the  mother  of  another 
hungry  infant  and  suffers  from  anxiety  for  the  success  of 
the  nursing ;  that  feeling,  according  to  which  a  father, 
tormenting  himself,  takes  the  last  piece  of  bread  away 
from   starving  people,  in  order  to  provide  for  his   own 


ON   LIFE  329 

children ;  that  feeling,  according  to  which  he  who  loves  a 
woman  suffers  from  this  love  and  causes  her  to  suffer, 
when  he  seduces  her,  or  out  of  jealousy  ruins  himself  and 
her ;  that  feeling,  which  sometimes  leads  a  man  to  rape 
a  woman ;  that  feeling,  by  dint  of  which  men,  in  order  to 
defend  the  rights  of  their  society,  cause  harm  to  others ; 
that  feeliug,  which  causes  a  man  to  torment  himself  over 
some  favourite  occupation,  and  by  this  very  occupation  to 
inflict  sorrow  and  suffering  on  those  who  surround  him ; 
that  feeling,  by  dint  of  which  men  will  not  bear  any 
insult  offered  to  their  beloved  country,  and  strew  the 
fields  with  killed  and  wounded,  both  of  their  own  and  of 
strangers. 

More  than  this :  the  activity  of  love  presents  such 
difficulties  for  men  who  recognize  life  to  consist  in  the 
good  of  the  animal  personality,  that  its  manifestations 
become  not  only  agonizing,  but  frequently  even  impossible. 
"  We  must  not  reflect  on  love,"  people  who  do  not  under- 
stand life  generally  say,  "  but  abandon  ourselves  to  the 
immediate  feeling  of  predilection  and  bias  toward  people, 
which  we  experience,  and  this  is  true  love." 

They  are  right  that  we  must  not  reflect  on  love,  that 
every  reflection  on  love  destroys  love.  But  the  point  is, 
that  only  those  people  can  keep  from  reflecting  on  love 
who  have  already  used  their  reason  for  the  comprehension 
of  life  and  have  renounced  the  good  of  the  personal  life ; 
but  those  people  who  do  not  comprehend  life,  and  exist 
for  the  good  of  the  animal  personality,  cannot  help  but 
reflect  on  it.  They  must  reflect,  in  order  that  they  may 
abandon  themselves  to  the  feehng  which  they  call  love. 
Every  manifestation  of  this  feeling  is  impossible  for  them 
without  reflection,  without  the  solution  of  insoluble  ques- 
tions. 

Indeed,  men  prefer  their  babes,  their  friends,  their 
wives,  their  children,  their  country,  to  all  other  children, 
wives,  friends,  countries,  and  call  this  sentiment  love. 


330  ON    LIFE 

To  love  means  in  general  to  wish  to  do  good.  Even  so 
we  all  understand  love,  and  cannot  help  but  understand 
it  thus.  And  so  I  love  my  child,  my  wife,  my  country, 
that  is,  I  wish  my  chik\,  my  wife,  my  country,  more  good 
than  other  children,  wives,  and  countries.  It  never  hap- 
pens, and  it  cannot  happen,  that  a  man  loves  his  child  only, 
or  his  wife,  or  his  country  only.  Every  man  loves  at  the 
same  time  his  babe,  his  wife,  his  children,  his  country, 
and  men  in  general.  Meanwhile  the  conditions  of  the 
good,  which  in  his  love  he  wishes  various  beloved  beings, 
are  so  connected  among  themselves  that  every  love  activ- 
ity of  a  man  for  one  of  his  beloved  beings  not  only  inter- 
feres with  his  activity  for  others,  but  even  injures  others. 

And  there  arise  the  questions  as  to  how  one  is  to  act  and 
in  the  name  of  what  love.  In  the  name  of  what  love  are 
we  to  sacrifice  another  love  ?  "Whom  shall  we  love  more,  to 
whom  do  more  good,  —  to  the  wife  or  to  the  children,  to 
the  wife  and  to  the  children  or  to  the  friends  ?  How  are 
we  to  serve  our  beloved  country,  without  impairing  the 
love  for  wife,  children,  and  friends  ?  How,  finally,  am  I  to 
decide  the  question  how  much  I  may  sacrifice  of  my  per- 
sonahty  which  is  needed  in  the  service  .of  others  ?  How 
much  must  I  care  for  myself,  in  order  that,  loving  others, 
I  may  be  able  to  serve  them  ?  All  these  questions  seem 
very  simple  for  men  who  do  not  attempt  to  give  them- 
selves an  account  of  the  feeling  which  they  call  love ; 
but,  far  from  being  simple,  they  are  completely  insoluble. 

There  was  good  reason  why  the  lawyer  put  this  ques- 
tion to  Christ :  "  Who  is  my  neighbour  ? "  Answers  to 
these  questions  appear  very  easy  to  such  people  only 
as  forget  the  true  conditions  of  human  hfe. 

Only  if  men  were  gods,  such  as  we  imagine  them  to  be, 
would  they  be  able  to  love  certain  chosen  people,  and 
then  only  could  the  preference  of  some  to  others  be  true 
love.  But  men  are  not  gods  :  they  exist  under  those  con- 
ditions of  existence  under  which  all  living  beings  always 


ON   LIFE  331 

live  on  one  another,  devouring  one  another,  both  in  the 
direct  and  the  transferred  sense ;  and  man,  as  a  rational 
being,  must  know  and  see  it.  He  must  know  that  every 
carnal  good  is  obtained  by  one  being  only  at  the  expense 
of  another. 

No  matter  how  much  rehgious  and  scientific  superstitions 
may  assure  people  of  a  future  golden  age,  in  which  there 
will  be  plenty  of  everything  for  all  men,  a  rational  man 
sees  and  knows  that  the  law  of  his  temporal  and  spatial 
existence  is  a  struggle  of  all  against  each,  of  each  against 
each  and  against  all. 

In  this  pressure  and  struggle  of  animal  interests,  which 
form  the  hfe  of  the  world,  man  cannot  love  chosen  ones, 
as  people  imagine  who  do  not  understand  life.  Even  if 
a  man  loves  chosen  ones,  he  never  loves  just  one.  Every 
man  loves  his  mother,  his  wife,  his  babe,  his  friends,  his 
country,  and  even  all  men.  And  love  is  not  a  mere  word 
(all  agree  to  this),  but  an  activity  which  is  directed  upon 
the  good  of  others.  Xow  this  activity  does  not  take  place 
in  any  definite  order,  so  that  at  first  man  becomes  aware 
of  the  demands  of  his  strongest  love,  then  of  his  less 
strong  love,  and  so  forth.  The  demands  of  love  are  con- 
stantly made  manifest  and  all  at  once,  without  any  order. 
A  hungry  old  man,  whom  I  love  a  little,  has  just  come 
and  asks  me  to  give  him  the  food  which  I  am  keeping  for 
a  supper  for  my  beloved  children ;  how  am  I  to  weigh 
the  demands  of  my  present,  less  strong  love  with  the 
future  demands  of  a  stronger  love  ? 

The  same  questions  were  put  by  the  law^'er  to  Christ : 
"  Who  is  my  neighbour  ? "  Indeed,  how  shall  it  be  de- 
cided whom  I  must  serve,  and  to  what  extent  ?  —  whether 
men  or  my  country,  whether  my  country  or  my  friends  ? 
whether  my  friends  or  my  wife?  whether  my  wife  or  my 
father  ?  whether  my  father  or  my  children  ?  whether 
mv  children  or  mvself  (so  that  I  mav  be  able  to  serve 
others,  when  any  need  for  it  shall  arise)  ? 


332  ON    LIFE 

All  these  certainly  are  demands  of  love,  and  they 
are  all  intertwined,  so  that  the  gratification  of  the  de- 
mands of  some  deprives  man  of  the  possibihty  of  satisfy- 
ing the  others.  If  I  admit  that  a  frozen  child  may  not 
be  clothed,  because  the  garment  which  they  ask  of  me 
may  some  day  be  of  use  for  my  children,  I  can  also  refuse 
to  abandon  myself  to  other  demands  of  love  in  the  name 
of  my  future  children. 

The  same  is  true  in  relation  to  love  of  country,  of 
favourite  occupations,  and  of  all  men.  If  a  man  is  capa- 
ble of  renouncing  the  demands  of  the  smallest  love  of  the 
present,  in  the  name  of  the  demand  of  the  greater  love 
of  the  future,  it  is  clear  that  such  a  man,  even  though  he 
wished  it  with  all  his  might,  will  never  be  able  to  weigh 
in  how  far  he  can  renounce  the  demands  of  the  present 
in  the  name  of  the  future ;  and  so,  being  unable  to  decide 
the  question,  he  will  always  choose  that  manifestation  of 
love  which  will  be  agreeable  to  him,  that  is,  he  will  not 
act  in  the  name  of  love,  but  in  the  name  of  his  person- 
ality. If  a  man  decides  that  it  is  better  for  him  to  refrain 
from  the  demands  of  the  present,  smaller  love  in  the  name 
of  another,  a  future  manifestation  of  a  greater  love,  he  is 
deceiving  either  himself  or  others,  and  loves  no  one  but 
himself. 

There  is  no  love  in  the  future :  love  is  only  an  activity 
in  the  present.  A  man  who  does  not  manifest  love  in  the 
present  has  no  love. 

What  takes  place  is  the  same  as  in  the  conception  of 
life  held  by  men  who  have  no  life.  If  men  were  animals 
and  had  no  reason,  they  would  exist  like  animals,  without 
reflecting  on  life,  and  their  animal  existence  would  be 
legitimate  and  happy.  The  same  is  true  of  love :  if  men 
were  animals  without  reason,  they  would  love  those  whom 
they  love,  —  their  whelps  and  their  flock,  —  and  would 
not  know  that  they  love  their  whelps  and  their  flock,  nor 
that  other  wolves  love  their  whelps,  and  other  flocks  the 


ON    LIFE  333 

members  of  their  flocks,  and  their  love  would  he  that  love 
and  that  life  which  would  be  possible  on  that  stage  of 
consciousness  which  they  occupy. 

But  men  are  rational  beings  and  cannot  help  seeing  that 
other  beings  have  the  same  love  for  their  own,  and  that, 
therefore,  these  sentiments  of  love  must  come  into  con- 
flict and  cause  something  which  is  not  good  and  the  very 
opposite  to  the  concept  of  love. 

But  if  men  use  their  reason  for  the  purpose  of  jus- 
tifying and  strengthening  that  animal,  unpropitious  sen- 
timent, which  they  call  love,  by  ascribing  monstrous 
proportions  to  this  feeling,  it  not  only  fails  to  be  good, 
but  also  makes  of  man  —  this  is  an  old  truth  —  a  very 
evil  and  terrible  animal.  What  takes  place  is  hke  what 
is  said  in  the  Gospel :  "  If  the  light  which  be  in  thee  is 
darkness,  how  great  is  the  darkness  ? "  If  there  were 
nothing  in  man  but  love  for  himself  and  for  his  children, 
there  would  not  be  even  one  hundredth  part  of  that  evil 
which  now  exists  among  men.  Ninety-nine  hundredths 
of  the  evil  among  men  is  due  to  that  false  feeling  which 
they,  extolling  it,  call  love,  and  which  resembles  love  as 
much  as  the  life  of  an  animal  resembles  that  of  a  man. 

What  people,  who  do  not  know  life,  call  love,  is  only 
certain  preferences  of  one  set  of  conditions  of  the  good  of 
personality  over  another.  When  a  man,  who  does  not 
understand  life,  says  that  he  loves  his  wife,  or  babe,  or 
friend,  he  merely  says  that  the  presence  of  his  wife,  his 
child,  his  friend,  in  his  life  increases  the  good  of  his  per- 
sonal life. 

These  preferences  have  the  same  relation  to  love  that 
existence  has  to  life.  And  as  people  who  do  not  under- 
stand life  call  existence  life,  so  these  people  mean  by  love 
the  preference  of  certain  conditions  of  their  personal  ex- 
istence over  others. 

These  sentiments,  the  preferences  for  certain  beings,  for 
example,  for  one's  children  or  even  for  certain  occupations, 


334  ON   LIFE 

for  example,  for  science,  or  art,  we  call  love ;  but  such 
sentiments  of  preference,  infinitely  diversified,  form  the 
whole  complexity  of  the  visible  and  palpable  animal  life 
of  men  and  cannot  be  called  love,  because  they  lack  the 
chief  sign  of  love,  —  an  activity  which  has  the  good  both 
for  its  aim  and  consequence. 

The  passionateness  of  the  manifestation  of  these  prefer- 
ences only  shows  the  energy  of  the  animal  personality. 
The  passionateness  of  the  preference  of  one  set  of  men  to 
others,  which  is  incorrectly  called  love,  is  only  a  wild  tree 
on  which  true  love  may  be  gi-afted  and  may  bring  forth 
its  fruits.  But  as  the  wild  tree  is  not  an  apple-tree  and 
brings  forth  no  fruit,  or  only  bitter  fruit  instead  of  sweet, 
so  bias  is  not  love  and  does  no  good  to  men,  or  produces 
a  still  greater  evil.  Consequently  the  greatest  evil  is 
caused  the  world  by  the  much  lauded  love  of  woman,  of 
children,  of  friends,  not  to  speak  of  the  love  of  science, 
of  art,  of  country,  which  is  nothing  but  a  temporary  pref- 
erence of  certain  conditions  of  animal  life  over  others. 


XXIV. 

TRUE  LOVE  IS  THE  CONSEQUENCE  OF  THE  RENUNCIATION 
OF  THE  GOOD  OF  PERSONALITY 

True  love  becomes  possible  only  with  the  renunciation 
of  the  good  of  the  animal  personality. 

The  possibility  of  true  love  begins  only  when  man  has 
come  to  understand  that  there  does  not  exist  for  him  the 
good  of  his  animal  personality.  Only  then  all  the  sap  of 
his  life  passes  into  the  one  ennobled  graft  of  true  love, 
which  is  growing  with  the  full  vigour  of  the  wild  trunk 
of  the  animal  personality.  Christ's  teaching  is  a  graft- 
ing of  this  love,  as  he  himself  said.  He  said  that  he,  his 
love,  is  the  one  vine  which  can  bear  fruit,  and  that  every 
branch  which  does  not  bear  fruit  will  be  cut  off. 

Only  he  who  has  not  merely  understood,  but  compre- 
hends with  his  whole  life  that  "  he  that  loveth  his  life 
shall  lose  it,  and  he  that  loseth  his  life  for  my  sake  shall 
save  it,"  only  he  who  has  come  to  understand  that  he 
who  loves  his  life  will  lose  it,  and  he  who  hates  his  life 
in  this  world  will  save  it  for  the  eternal  Hfe,  only  he  will 
know  true  love. 

"  He  that  loveth  father  or  mother  more  than  me  is  not 
worthy  of  me ;  and  he  that  loveth  son  or  daughter  more 
than  me  is  not  worthy  of  me.  If  you  love  those  who  love 
you,  it  is  not  love ;  love  your  enemies,  love  those  who 
hate  you." 

Not  in  consequence  of  their  love  of  father,  son,  wife, 
friends,  good  and  dear  people,  as  is  generally  believed,  do 
people  renounce  their  personality,  but  only  in  consequence 

336 


336  ON   LIFE 

of  the  consciousness  of  the  vanity  of  the  existence  of  per- 
sonality, of  the  consciousness  of  the  impossibility  of  its 
good,  and  so  man,  in  consequence  of  the  renunciation  of 
the  life  of  personality,  learns  to  know  true  love,  and  can 
truly  love  his  father,  son,  wife,  children,  and  friends. 

Love  is  the  preference  of  other  beings  over  oneself, 
over  one's  animal  personality. 

The  oblivion  of  the  nearest  interests  of  personality 
for  the  purpose  of  attaining  the  more  distant  aims  of  the 
same  personality,  as  happens  in  the  case  of  so-called  love, 
which  has  not  grown  out  of  self-renunciation,  is  only  the 
preference  of  some  beings  over  others  for  the  purpose  of 
one's  personal  good.  True  love,  before  becoming  an  active 
feeling,  must  be  a  certain  condition.  The  beginning  of 
love,  its  root,  is  not  an  outburst  of  feeling  which  dims 
reason,  as  it  is  generally  imagined  to  be,  but  a  very 
rational,  bright,  and  so  calm  and  joyful  state,  which  is 
peculiar  to  children  and  rational  people. 

This  state  is  one  of  good-will  toward  all  men,  which  is 
inherent  in  children,  but  which  in  adults  comes  only  with 
renunciation  and  is  strengthened  proportionately  with  the 
renunciation  of  the  good  of  personality.  How  often  we 
may  hear  the  words,  "  It  is  all  the  same  to  me,  I  need 
nothing,"  and  with  these  words  to  see  a  loveless  relation 
to  men !  But  let  any  man  even  once,  in  a  moment  of  ill- 
will  toward  men,  say  sincerely,  from  his  soul,  "  It  is  all 
the  same  to  me,  I  need  nothing,"  and  really  not  wish 
anything,  even  though  for  a  short  time,  and  he  will  find 
out  through  this  simple  internal  experience  how,  in  pro- 
portion with  the  sincerity  of  his  renunciation,  all  ill-will 
disappears  at  once,  and  how  good-will  toward  all  men, 
which  heretofore  was  locked  up  in  his  heart,  will  burst 
forth  in  a  torrent. 

Indeed  love  is  a  preference  of  other  beings  over  one- 
self, —  this  is  the  way  we  all  understand  love,  and  cannot 
understand    otherwise.     The    magnitude   of    love   is    the 


ON   LIFE  337 

magnitude  of  a  fraction,  the  numerator  of  which,  my  bias, 
my  sympathy  for  others  is  not  in  my  power ;  but  the  de- 
nominator, my  love  of  myself,  may  be  indefinitely  in- 
creased or  diminished  by  me,  in  accordance  with  the 
meaning  which  I  shall  ascribe  to  my  animal  personality ; 
but  the  reflections  of  our  world  on  love  and  its  degrees 
are  reflections  on  the  magnitude  of  fractions  judged  by 
their  numerators  alone,  without  any  reference  to  their 
denominators. 

True  love  has  always  for  its  basis  the  renunciation  of 
the  good  of  personality  and  the  consequent  good-will 
toward  all  men.  Only  on  this  universal  good-will  can 
true  love  for  certain  persons  grow,  —  the  love  for  friends 
and  for  strangers,  and  only  such  love  gives  the  true  good 
of  life  and  solves  the  seeming  contradiction  between  the 
animal  and  the  rational  consciousness. 

Love  which  has  not  for  its  basis  the  renunciation  of 
personality  and  the  consequent  good-will  toward  all  men, 
is  only  an  animal  life  and  is  subject  to  the  same  and 
even  greater  calamities  and  even  greater  misunderstand- 
ing than  the  life  without  this  apparent  love.  The  senti- 
ment of  bias,  called  love,  not  only  fails  to  remove  the 
struggle  of  existence,  to  free  the  personality  from  the 
chase  after  enjoyments,  and  to  save  from  death,  but  also 
obscures  life,  embitters  the  struggle,  intensifies  the  eager- 
ness for  enjoyments  for  oneself  and  for  others,  and  in- 
creases the  terror  of  death  for  oneself  and  for  others. 

A  man  who  assumes  all  his  life  to  lie  in  the  existence 
of  the  animal  personality  cannot  love,  because  love  must 
present  itself  to  him  as  an  activity  which  is  directly 
opposed  to  his  life.  The  hfe  of  such  a  man  lies  only  in 
the  good  of  the  animal  existence,  whereas  love  first  of  all 
demands  a  sacrifice  of  this  good.  Even  if  a  man  who 
does  not  understand  life  wanted  sincerely  to  abandon 
himself  to  the  activity  of  love,  he  would  not  be  able  to 
do  so  until  he  understood  life  and  changed  all  his  relation 


338  ON   LIFE 

to  it.  A  man  who  has  put  all  his  life  into  the  good  of 
the  animal  personality,  all  his  life  increases  the  means  of 
his  animal  good,  acquiring  wealth  and  preserving  it,  makes 
others  serve  his  animal  good,  and  distributes  this  good 
among  those  persons  who  are  most  needed  for  the  good 
of  his  personality.  How  can  he  give  up  his  life,  since 
his  life  is  not  supported  by  himself,  but  by  other  men  ? 
Still  harder  it  is  for  him  to  choose  to  whom  of  the  persons 
he  prefers  he  is  to  transmit  the  accumulated  good  and 
whom  to  serve. 

To  be  able  to  give  up  his  life,  he  must  first  give  up 
that  surplus  which  he  takes  from  others  for  the  good  of 
his  life,  and  then  do  the  impossible :  he  must  solve  the 
question  which  men  he  is  to  serve  with  his  life.  Before  he 
will  be  able  to  love,  that  is,  to  do  good  by  sacrificing  himself, 
he  must  stop  hating,  that  is,  doing  evil,  and  stop  preferring 
some  people  to  others  for  the  good  of  his  personality. 

The  activity  of  man's  love,  which  always  satisfies  him 
and  others,  is  possible  only  for  him  who  does  not  recog- 
nize any  good  in  the  personal  life  and  so  does  not  trouble 
himself  about  this  false  good,  and  in  this  way  has  freed  in 
himself  the  good-will  for  all  men,  which  is  peculiar  to 
man.  The  good  of  life  for  such  a  man  is  in  love,  as  the 
good  of  a  plant  is  in  the  light,  and  so,  as  a  plant  that  is 
not  covered  by  anything  cannot  and  does  not  ask  in  what 
direction  it  shall  grow,  whether  the  light  is  good,  and 
whether  it  had  not  better  wait  for  another,  more  favour- 
able light,  but  takes  that  one  light  which  there  is  in  the 
world  and  tends  toward  it,  —  so  a  man  who  has  renounced 
the  good  of  personality  does  not  discuss  what  he  must 
give  back  of  what  he  has  taken  from  other  people  and  to 
what  beloved  beings,  and  whether  there  is  not  some 
better  love  than  the  one  which  prefers  demands,  —  but 
gives  himself  and  his  existence  to  that  love  which  is  ac- 
cessible to  him  and  is  before  him.  Only  such  a  love 
gives  full  satisfaction  to  man's  rational  nature 


XXV. 

LOVE  IS  THE  ONLY  FULL  ACTIVITY  OF  THE  TRUE  LIFE 

TiiEKE  is  no  other  love  than  the  one  which  makes  us 
lay  down  our  hfe  for  our  friends.  Love  is  then  only  love 
when  it  is  a  self-sacrifice.  Only  when  a  man  gives  to 
another  his  time,  his  forces,  when  he  sacrifices  his  body 
for  a  beloved  object,  gives  his  life  to  it,  —  only  that  we 
all  recognize  as  love,  and  only  in  such  love  do  we  all  find 
the  good,  the  reward  of  love.  And  the  world  exists  by 
nothing  else  than  that  there  is  such  love  in  men.  A 
mother  who  nurses  her  babe  gives  herself,  her  body,  out- 
right as  food  for  her  children,  who  without  it  would  not 
be  living.  And  this  is  love.  Even  so  every  labourer 
gives  himself,  his  body,  as  food  for  another,  when  he 
wears  away  his  body  in  work  for  the  good  of  others  and 
approaches  death.  Such  love  is  possible  for  such  a  man 
only  for  whom  between  the  possibility  of  self-sacrifice 
and  those  beings  whom  he  loves  there  is  no  obstacle  for 
the  sacrifice.  A  mother  who  turns  her  child  away  to  a 
wet-nurse  cannot  love  it ;  a  man  who  acquires  and  keeps 
his  money  cannot  love. 

"He  that  saith  he  is  in  the  light,  and  hateth  his 
brother,  is  in  darkness  even  until  now.  He  that  loveth 
his  brother  abideth  in  the  light,  and  there  is  none  occasion 
of  stumbling  in  him.  But  he  that  hateth  his  brother  is  in 
darkness,  and  walketh  in  darkness,  and  knoweth  not 
whither  he  goeth,  because  that  darkness  hath  blinded  his 
eyes.  .  .  .  Let  us  not  love  in  word,  neither  in  tongue ; 
but  in  deed  and  in  truth.     And  hereby  we  know  that  we 

339 


340  ON    LIFE 

are  of  the  truth,  and  shall  assure  our  hearts  before  him. 
.  .  .  Herein  is  our  love  made  perfect,  that  we  may  have 
boldness  in  the  day  of  judgment :  because  as  he  is,  so 
are  we  in  this  world.  There  is  no  fear  in  love;  but 
perfect  love  casteth  out  fear :  because  fear  hath  torment. 
He  that  feareth,  is  not  made  perfect  in  love." 

Only  such  love  gives  the  true  life  to  men. 

"  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart, 
and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind.  This  is 
the  first  and  great  commandment." 

"  And  the  second  is  like  unto  it :  Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbour  as  thyself,"  the  lawyer  said  to  Christ.  And  to 
this  Christ  replied :  "  Thou  hast  said  the  truth,  do  like 
that,  that  is,  love  God  and  thy  neighbour,  and  thou  shalt 
live." 

True  love  is  life  itself. 

"  We  know  that  we  have  passed  from  death  unto  life, 
because  we  love  the  brethren,"  says  Christ's  disciple. 
"  He  that  loveth  not  his  brother  abideth  in  death." 

Only  he  who  loves  lives. 

Love  is  according  to  Christ's  teaching  life  itself,  not 
irrational,  suffering,  perishable,  but  blessed  and  infinite 
life.  And  we  all  know  it.  Love  is  not  a  deduction  of 
reason,  not  the  consequence  of  a  certain  activity ;  it  is  the 
most  joyous  activity  of  life,  which  surrounds  us  on  all 
sides,  and  which  we  all  know  in  ourselves  from  the  very 
first  recollections  of  childhood  until  the  false  teachings  of 
the  world  have  muddled  it  in  our  soul  and  have  deprived 
us  of  the  possibility  of  experiencing  it. 

Love  is  not  a  bias  for  what  increases  the  temporal  good 
of  man's  personality,  as  the  love  for  chosen  persons  or 
objects,  but  that  striving  after  the  good  of  what  is  outside 
of  man,  which  remains  in  man  after  the  renunciation  of 
the  good  of  the  animal  personality. 

Who  of  living  men  does  not  know  that  blessed  feeling, 
which  is  experienced  at  least  once,  most  frequently  only  in 


ON    LIFE  341 

earliest  childhood,  when  the  soul  is  not  yet  muddled  by 
that  lie,  which  drowns  hfe  iu  us,  —  that  blessed  feeling  of 
meekness  of  spirit,  when  one  wants  to  love  all,  —  relatives, 
father,  mother,  brothers,  and  evil  men,  and  enemies,  and 
the  dog,  and  the  horse,  and  the  grass ;  one  wishes  only 
this  much,  —  that  all  should  be  happy  and  comfortable, 
and  one  wishes  still  more  that  one  may  be  the  cause  of 
the  happiness  of  all,  and  may  give  one's  whole  life  for  the 
purpose  of  making  all  happy  and  comfortable  for  ever. 
This  alone  is  that  love  in  which  man's  life  consists. 

This  love,  in  which  alone  there  is  life,  manifests  itself 
in  man's  soul  as  a  barely  perceptible,  tender  shoot  amidst 
coarse  shoots  of  weeds,  which  resemble  it,  amidst  man's 
various  lusts,  which  we  call  love.  At  first  it  seems  to 
men,  and  to  that  man  as  well,  that  this  shoot,  —  from 
which  there  is  to  grow  a  tree  for  the  birds  to  hide  in,  — 
and  all  the  other  shoots  are  one  and  the  same.  Men  at  first 
even  prefer  the  shoots  of  the  weeds,  which  gi-ow  more 
rankly,  and  the  only  shoot  of  life  is  crowded,  and  dies. 
But  still  worse  is  what  happens  more  frequently :  men 
have  heard  that  among  these  shoots  there  is  one  real, 
vital  shoot,  called  love,  and  they  tramp  it  down  and  in  its 
place  begin  to  raise  up  another  shoot  of  a  weed,  calling  it 
love.  Worse  still :  men  grasp  the  shoot  itself  with  their 
gross  hands,  and  shout,  "  Here  it  is,  —  we  have  found  it ; 
now  we  know  it,  and  will  foster  it,  —  love,  love !  O 
highest  sentiment,  here  it  is  ! "  And  they  begin  to  trans- 
plant it  and  to  improve  it,  and  they  handle  it  so  roughly 
and  crush  it  so  much  that  it  dies  without  growing  up, 
and  then  these  people,  or  others,  say  :  "  All  this  is  nonsense, 
foolishness,  sentimentality."  The  shoot  of  love,  which  at 
its  appearance  is  tender  and  brooks  no  touch,  is  powerful 
only  when  full  grown.  Everything  which  people  will  do 
with  it  is  only  worse  for  it.  It  needs  but  one  thing,  —  tliat 
nothing  should  conceal  from  it  tlie  sun  of  reason,  which 
alone  causes  it  to  grow. 


XXVI. 

THE  ENDEAVOUES  OF  MEN,  DIRECTED  UPON  THE  IMPOS- 
SIBLE IMPROVEMENT  OF  THEIR  EXISTENCE,  DEPRIVE 
THEM  OF  THE  POSSIBILITY  OF  THEIR  ONLY,  TRUE 
LIFE 

Nothing  but  the  recognition  of  the  illusion  and  decep- 
tiveness  of  the  animal  existence  and  the  liberation  of  the 
only,  true  life  of  love  within  man  gives  him  the  good. 
Now,  what  do  men  do  in  order  to  obtain  this  good  ?  Men, 
whose  existence  consists  in  the  slow  annihilation,  of  per- 
sonality and  approximation  to  the  inevitable  death  of  this 
personality,  and  who  cannot  help  knowing  this,  during 
the  whole  time  of  their  existence  try  with  their  might 
and  main  —  this  is  all  they  busy  themselves  with  —  to 
strengthen  this  perishable  personality,  to  satisfy  its  appe- 
tites, and  thus  to  deprive  themselves  of  the  possibility  of 
their  only  good  of  life,  —  of  love. 

The  activity  of  men  who  do  not  understand  life  is 
during  the  whole  time  of  their  existence  directed  to  the 
struggle  for  their  existence,  to  the  acquisition  of  pleasures, 
to  the  liberation  from  suffering,  and  to  the  removal  from 
themselves  of  inevitable  death. 

But  the  increase  of  enjoyments  increases  the  tension  of 
the  struggle  and  the  sensitiveness  to  sufferings,  and  brings 
death  nearer  to  them.  To  conceal  this  approach  of  death 
there  is  but  one  means,  —  to  increase  the  enjoyments. 
But  the  increase  of  enjoyments  reaches  its  limit,  the 
enjoyments  cannot  be  increased  and  pass  into  suffer- 
ings, and  all  there  is  left  is  a  sensitiveness  to  sufferings, 

342 


ON   LIFE  343 

and  the  terror  of  death  coming  nearer  and  nearer  amidst 
nothing  but  sufferings.  There  appears  the  vicious  circle : 
one  is  the  cause  of  the  other,  and  one  intensifies  the 
other.  The  chief  horror  of  the  life  of  men  who  do  not 
understand  life  consists  in  this,  that  that  which  by  them 
is  regarded  as  pleasures  (all  the  pleasures  of  wealthy- 
people),  being  such  as  cannot  be  evenly  distributed  among 
all  men,  must  be  taken  from  others  and  acquired  by  force, 
by  evil,  which  destroys  the  possibility  of  that  good-will 
toward  men  from  which  love  grows.  Thus  the  pleasures 
are  always  directly  opposed  to  love,  and  the  greater,  the 
more  so ;  thus,  the  stronger,  the  more  tense  the  activity  is 
for  the  attainment  of  pleasures,  the  more  impossible 
becomes  the  only  good  accessible  to  man,  —  love. 

Life  is  not  understood  as  it  is  cognized  by  the  rational 
consciousness,  as  an  invisible,  but  unquestionable  subjec- 
tion of -one's  animal  personality  to  the  law  of  reason  at 
every  moment  of  the  present,  as  a  liberating  good-will 
toward  all  men,  which  is  characteristic  of  man,  and  as  an 
activity  of  love  resulting  from  it,  but  only  as  a  carnal 
existence  in  the  course  of  a  given  interv^al  of  time,  under 
definite  conditions  created  by  us,  which  exclude  the  possi- 
bility of  good-will  toward  all  men. 

To  men  of  the  worldly  teaching,  who  have  directed 
their  reason  to  the  establishment  of  certain  conditions  of 
existence,  it  seems  that  the  increase  of  the  good  of  life  is 
due  to  a  better  external  arrangement  of  their  existence; 
but  the  better  external  arrangement  of  their  existence 
depends  on  greater  violence  being  exerted  against  people, 
which  is  directly  opposed  to  love.  Thus,  the  better  the 
arrangement,  the  less  there  is  left  of  the  possibility  of 
love,  of  the  possibility  of  hfe. 

Not  having  employed  their  reason  for  the  compre- 
hension of  the  good  of  the  animal  existence,  which  for  all 
men  ahke  is  equal  to  zero,  men  recognize  this  zero  as  a 
magnitude  which  is  capable  of  increase  and  diminution, 


344  ON   LIFE 

and  employ  as  much  of  their  unappHed  reason  as  they 
have  left  to  this  increase  and  multiplication  of  the  zero. 

These  men  do  not  see  that  nothing,  zero,  no  matter  by 
what  it  be  multiplied,  remains  equal  to  any  other  zero ; 
they  do  not  see  that  the  existence  of  the  animal  personal- 
ity of  each  man  is  equally  wretched  and  cannot  be  made 
happy  by  any  external  conditions.  These  men  do  not 
wish  to  see  that  not  one  existence,  as  a  carnal  existence, 
can  be  happier  than  another,  —  that  it  is  a  law  like  this 
other  law,  according  to  which  water  cannot  be  raised  on  a 
lake  above  a  given  general  level.  The  men  who  have 
distorted  their  reason  do  not  see  this,  and  use  their  dis- 
torted reason  in  this  impossible  work,  and  their  whole 
existence  passes  in  this  impossible  raising  of  the  water  at 
different  places  on  the  surface  of  the  lake,  —  something 
like  what  children  do  in  bathing,  calling  it  "  brewing 
beer." 

It  seems  to  them  that  the  existences  of  men  may  be 
more  and  less  good  and  happy.  The  existence  of  a  poor 
labourer  or  a  sick  man,  they  say,  is  bad  and  unhappy ; 
the  existence  of  a  rich  or  healthy  man  is  good  and  happy  ; 
and  they  strain  all  the  powers  of  their  reason  for  the 
purpose  of  avoiding  a  bad,  unhappy,  poor,  and  sickly 
existence  and  arranging  for  themselves  one  which  is  good, 
rich,  healthy  and  happy. 

The  methods  of  arranging  and  maintaining  these  vari- 
ous most  happy  lives  are  worked  out  by  generations,  and 
the  programmes  of  these  imaginary  best  lives,  as  they  call 
their  animal  existence,  are  transmitted  by  inheritance. 
People  vie  with  each  other  in  the  endeavour  to  maintain 
that  happy  life  which  they  have  inherited  from  the 
arrangement  of  their  parents,  or  try  to  prepare  a  new, 
still  happier  life  for  themselves.  It  seems  to  these  people 
that  maintaining  their  inherited  arrangement  of  existence 
or  a  new  existence,  which  in  their  opinion  is  better,  they 
are  doing  something. 


ON    LIFE  345 

Supporting  one  another  in  this  deception,  men  are  often 
so  sincerely  conviuced  that  life  cousists  in  this  senseless 
stamping  of  the  water,  the  insipidity  of  which  is  evident 
to  them,  —  they  convince  themselves  so  much  of  it,  that 
they  contemptuously  turn  away  from  the  appeal  to  the 
true  hfe  which  they  hear  all  the  time  in  the  teaching 
of  the  truth,  and  in  the  examples  of  the  lives  of  living 
men,  and  in  their  deadened  souls,  in  which  the  voice  of 
reason  and  of  love  is  never  fully  drowned. 

A  remarkahle  thing  takes  place :  men,  an  enormous 
majority  of  men,  who  have  the  possibility  for  a  rational 
life  of  love,  are  in  the  same  condition  that  sheep  are  in, 
when  they  are  being  dragged  out  of  a  burning  building ; 
imagining  that  they  are  to  be  thrown  into  the  fire,  they 
employ  all  their  forces  for  the  purpose  of  struggling  with 
those  who  want  to  save  them. 

Out  of  the  fear  of  death  liien  do  not  want  to  come 
away  from  it ;  out  of  the  fear  of  suffering  men  torment 
themselves  aud  deprive  themselves  of  the  good  and  the 
life  which  alone  is  impossible  for  them.  . 


\ 


XXVII. 

THE  DREAD  OF  DEATH  IS  ONLY  THE  CONSCIOUSNESS  OF 
THE  UNSOLVED  CONTEADICTION  OF  LIFE 

"  There  is  no  death,"  the  voice  of  truth  tells  people. 
"  I  am  the  resurrection,  and  the  life :  he  that  believeth  in 
me,  though  he  were  dead,  yet  shall  he  live  :  and  whosoever 
liveth  and  believeth  in  me  shall  never  die.  Believest 
thou  this  ? " 

"  There  is  no  death,"  all  the  great  teachers  of  the  world 
have  said,  and  millions  of  people,  who  have  compre- 
hended the  meaning  of  life,  have  borne  witness  to  it  with 
their  lives.  The  same  is  felt  in  his  soul  by  every  hving 
man,  in  a  moment  of  enlightenment  of  his  consciousness. 
But  men  who  do  not  understand  life  cannot  help  but  fear 
death.     They  see  it  and  believe  in  it. 

"  What,  there  is  no  death  ? "  these  men  cry,  with  indig- 
nation and  malice.  "  This  is  a  piece  of  sophistry.  Death 
is  before  us :  it  has  mowed  down  millions,  and  it  will 
mow  us  down,  too.  No  matter  how  you  may  insist  that 
it  is  not,  it  will  remain.     Here  it  is  !  " 

They  are  speaking  of  what  they  see,  just  as  a  deranged 

person  sees  the  vision  which  terrifies  him.     He  cannot 

feel  the  vision,  for  the  vision  has  never  touched  him ;  he 

knows  nothing  of  its  intention,  but  he  is  so  afraid  of  this 

imaginary  vision  and  suffers  from  it  so  much  that  he  is 

deprived  of  the  possibility  of  life.     The  same  is  true  of 

death.     Man  does  not  know  his   death   and   can  never 

know  it :  it  has  never  touched  him,  and  of  its  intentions 

he  knows  nothing.     So  what  is  he  afraid  of  ? 

346 


ON   LIFE  347 

"  It  has  never  seized  me  yet ;  but  it  will  seize  me,  I  am 
sure  of  that,  —  it  will  seize  me,  and  will  destroy  me. 
And  that  is  terrible,"  say  people  who  do  not  understand 
life. 

If  men  with  a  false  conception  of  life  were  able  to 
reflect  calmly,  and  reasoned  correctly  on  the  basis  of  that 
conception  which  they  have  of  life,  they  would  have  to 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  nothing  disagreeable 
or  terrible  iu  this,  that  in  ray  carnal  existence  there  will 
take  place  that  change  which,  I  see,  unceasingly  takes 
place  in  all  beings,  and  which  I  call  death. 

I  shall  die.  Where  is  the  terror  in  this  ?  Have  not 
very  many  changes  taken  place  in  my  carnal  existence 
without  causing  me  fear  ?  Why,  then,  am  I  afraid  of  this 
change,  which  has  not  yet  taken  place  and  in  which  there 
is  not  only  nothing  contrary  to  my  reason  and  experience, 
but  which  is  so  intelligible,  familiar,  and  natural  to  me 
that  in  the  course  of  my  life  I  have  constantly  made  com- 
binations, in  wliich  the  death  both  of  animals  and  men 
has  been  accepted  by  me  as  a  necessary  and  often  as  an 
agreeable  condition  of  life  ?     Where  is  here  the  terror  ? 

There  are  only  two  strictly  logical  views  of  hfe :  one, 
the  false  view,  by  which  life  is  understood  as  those  visible 
phenomena  whicli  take  place  in  my  body  from  birth  to 
death,  and  the  other,  the  true  view,  by  which  life  is  un- 
derstood as  that  invisible  consciousness  of  life  which  I 
bear  in  myself.  One  view  is  false,  the  other  true,  but 
both  are  logical,  and  men  may  have  the  one  or  the  other, 
but  with  neither  is  the  dread  of  death  possible. 

The  first,  the  false  view,  which  understands  life  as  the 
visible  phenomena  in  the  body  from  birth  until  death,  is 
as  old  as  the  world.  It  is  not,  as  many  think,  a  view  of 
life  which  has  been  worked  out  by  the  materialistic  science 
and  philosophy  of  our  time:  the  science  and  philosophy 
of  our  time  have  only  carried  this  conception  to  its 
farthest  limits,  where  it  has  become  more  obvious  than 


348  ON    LIFE 

ever  that  this  view  is  not  compatible  with  the  funda- 
mental demands  of  human  nature ;  this  is  an  old,  primi- 
tive view  of  those  people  who  stood  on  a  lower  level  of 
development :  it  is  expressed  by  the  Chinese,  by  the 
BuddMsts,  by  the  Jews,  in  the  book  of  Job,  and  in  the 
expression,  "  Dust  thou  art,  and  to  dust  returnest." 

This  view,  in  its  present  expression,  is  as  follows :  hfe 
is  an  accidental  play  of  forces  in  matter,  as  manifested  in 
time  and  space.  But  that  which  we  call  our  conscious- 
ness is  not  life :  it  is  a  certain  deception  of  the  sensations, 
which  makes  us  believe  that  life  consists  in  this  conscious- 
ness. Consciousness  is  a  spark  which  under  certain  con- 
ditions bursts  into  fire  on  the  matter.  This  spark  bursts 
into  fire,  flames  up,  goes  out,  and  finally  is  no  more.  This 
spark,  that  is,  consciousness,  wliich  is  experienced  by  matter 
in  the  course  of  a  definite  period  of  time  between  two  infin- 
ities, is  nothing.  And  although  consciousness  sees  itself 
and  all  the  infinite  world  and  all  the  play  of  accidents  of 
this  world,  and,  what  is  most  important,  in  contradistinc- 
tion to  something  not  accidental,  calls  this  game  acciden- 
tal, this  consciousness  is  in  itself  nothing  but  the  product 
of  dead  matter,  a  phantom,  which  rises  and  disappears 
without  any  residue  or  meaning.  Everything  is  the  prod- 
uct of  endlessly  changing  matter,  and  what  is  called  life 
is  only  a  certain  condition  of  dead  matter. 

Such  is  one  view  of  hfe.  This  view  is  quite  logical. 
According  to  this  view,  man's  rational  consciousness  is 
only  an  accident  which  is  concomitant  with  a  certain  con- 
dition of  matter ;  and  so  that  which  in  our  consciousness 
we  call  life  is  a  phantom.  There  exists  nothing  but  what 
is  dead.  What  we  call  life  is  the  play  of  death.  With 
such  a  view  of  life,  it  is  not  death  that  ought  to  be  terri- 
ble, but  life,  as  something  unnatural  and  irrational,  as  is 
the  case  with  the  Buddhists  and  the  modern  pessimists, 
Schopenhauer  and  Hartmann. 

The  other  view  of  life  is  as  follows :  life  is  only  what  I 


ON   LIFE  340 

am  conscious  of  in  myself.  Now,  I  do  not  cognize  my 
life  as  that  I  was  or  shall  be  (thus  I  reflect  on  life),  but 
as  that  I  am,  —  never  beginning  anywhere  and  never  end- 
ing anywhere.  With  the  consciousness  of  my  life  the 
concept  of  time  and  space  is  not  compatible.  My  hfe  is 
manifested  in  time  and  space,  but  that  is  only  its  mani- 
festation. Life  itself,  as  cognized  by  me,  is  cognized  by 
me  outside  time  and  space.  Thus,  with  this  view  it  turns 
out,  on  the  contrary,  that  it  is  not  the  consciousness  of 
life  which  is  a  phantom,  but  that  everything  spatial  and 
temporal  is  phantasmal.  Consequently,  the  temporal  and 
spatial  cessation  of  bodily  existence  has  with  this  view 
nothing  that  is  real,  and  so  cannot  cut  off,  nor  even  impair, 
my  true  life.     With  this  view  death  does  not  exist. 

Neither  with  the  one  view  of  life  nor  with  the  other 
could  there  be  any  dread  of  death,  if  men  strictly  adhered 
to  one  of  these  two  views. 

Neither  as  an  animal  nor  as  a  rational  being  can  man 
fear  death :  the  animal,  having  no  consciousness  of  life, 
does  not  see  death,  and  a  rational  being,  having  the  con- 
sciousness of  hfe,  cannot  see  in  animal  death  anything 
but  the  natural,  never  ceasing  motion  of  matter.  But  if 
man  is  afraid,  he  is  not  afraid  of  death,  which  he  does  not 
know,  but  of  life,  which  alone  his  animal  and  his  rational 
being  know.  The  feeling  which  in  men  is  expressed  as 
the  fear  of  death  is  only  the  consciousness  of  the  inner 
contradiction  of  life,  even  as  the  dread  of  visions  is  only 
the  consciousness  of  a  diseased  state  of  the  mind. 

"  I  shall  cease  to  exist,  —  I  shall  die,  and  everything  in 
which  I  take  my  life  to  be  will  die,"  one  voice  says  to 
man.  "  I  am,"  says  another  voice,  "  and  cannot  and  must 
not  die.     I  must  not  die,  and  yet  I  am  dying." 

Not  in  death  but  in  this  contradiction  is  the  cause  of 
all  that  terror  which  seizes  man  at  the  thought  of  carnal 
death :  the  dread  of  death  does  not  consist  in  this,  that  a 
man  is  afraid  of  the  cessation  of  the  existence  of  his  ani- 


350  ON    LIFE 

mal,  but  in  this,  that  he  supposes  that  that  which  cannot 
and  must  not  die  is  dying.  The  thought  of  future  death 
is  only  a  transference  into  the  future  of  death  which  is 
accomphshed  in  the  present.  The  phantom  of  the  future 
carnal  death  is  not  an  awakening  of  thought  in  regard  to 
death,  but,  on  the  contrary,  an  awakening  of  thought  in 
regard  to  the  life  which  man  ought  to  have,  but  has  not. 
This  feehng  is  similar  to  what  a  man  must  experience 
who  awakens  to  life  in  the  grave,  underground.  There 
is  life,  and  I  am  in  death,  there  it  is,  death  !  It  appears 
to  him  that  what  is  and  ought  to  be  is  being  destroyed. 
And  the  human  mind  is  beside  itself  and  terrified.  The 
best  proof  that  the  terror  of  death  is  not  the  terror  of 
death,  but  of  the  false  life,  is  this,  that  people  frequently 
kill  themselves  out  of  the  terror  of  death. 

Men  are  not  terrified  at  the  thought  of  the  carnal  death 
because  they  are  afraid  lest  their  life  may  end  with 
it,  but  because  the  carnal  death  shows  them  clearly  the 
necessity  for  the  true  hfe,  which  they  have  not.  And  for 
this  reason  people  who  do  not  understand  life  do  not  like 
to  mention  death.  To  think  of  death  is  for  them  the 
same  as  admitting  that  they  do  not  live  as  the  rational 
consciousness  demands  that  they  shall. 

People  who  are  afraid  of  death  fear  it,  because  it  appears 
to  them  as  emptiness  and  darkness ;  but  they  see  empti- 
ness and  darkness,  because  they  do  not  see  life. 


xxvm. 

THE    CARNAL     DEATH     DESTROYS     THE    SPATIAL     BODY    AND 
THE     TEMPORAL    CONSCIOUSNESS,     BUT    CANNOT     DES- 
TROY     WHAT     FORMS     THE     FOUNDATION    OF     LIFE, — 
THE    SPECIAL     RELATION     WHICH    EACH     BEING     BEARS 
TO    THE    WORLD 

But  if  the  people  who  do  not  see  life  only  came  nearer 
to  tliose  visions  which  frighten  them,  and  touched  them, 
they  would  see  that  even  for  them  the  vision  is  only  a 
vision,  and  not  reality. 

The  dread  of  death  is  in  men  always  due  to  the  fact 
that  they  are  afraid  that  with  their  carnal  death  they  will 
lose  their  individual  ego,  which,  they  feel,  constitutes 
their  life.  I  shall  die,  the  body  will  decompose,  and  my 
ego  will  be  destroyed.  My  ego  is  that  which  has  lived  so 
many  years  in  my  body. 

Men  esteem  this  their  ego,  and,  supposing  that  this  ego 
coincides  with  their  carnal  life,  they  conclude  that  it 
must  be  destroyed  with  the  destruction  of  the  carnal  life. 

This  is  a  very  usual  conclusion,  and  it  rarely  occurs  to 
one  to  doubt  it,  and  yet  this  conclusion  is  quite  arbitrary. 
People,  both  those  who  regard  themselves  as  materiahsts, 
and  those  who  regard  themselves  as  spiritualists,  are  so 
accustomed  to  the  notion  that  their  ego  is  that  conscious- 
ness of  their  bodies  which  has  lived  so  and  so  many  years, 
that  it  even  does  not  occur  to  them  to  verify  the  truth  of 
such  an  assertion. 

I  have  lived  for  fifty-nine  years,  and  all  this  time  I  have 
been  conscious  of  myself  in  my  body,  and  this  conscious- 

351 


352 


ON    LIFE 


ness  of  myself  by  myself,  it  seems  to  me,  has  been  my  life. 
But  that  only  seems  so  to  me.  I  have  not  lived  tifty-nine 
years,  nor  fifty-nine  thousand  years,  nor  fifty-nine  seconds. 
Neither  my  body  nor  the  time  of  its  existence  in  any 
way  determmes  the  hfe  of  my  ego.  If  at  each  minute 
of  my  life  I  shall  ask  myself  what  I  am,  I  shall  reply : 
something  thinking  and  feeling,  that  is,  something  which 
bears  its  own  peculiar  relation  to  the  world.  Only  this  I 
recognize  as  my  ego,  and  nothing  else.  I  am  positively 
not  conscious  of  when  and  where  I  was  born,  when  and 
where  I  began  to  feel  and  think  as  I  am  feeUng  and 
thinking  now.  All  that  my  consciousness  tells  me  is 
this :  I  am ;  I  am  with  that  relation  of  mine  to  the  world 
in  which  I  find  myself  now. 

Of  my  birth,  my  childhood,  my  many  periods  of  life, 
my  adult  years,  of  very  recent  times,  I  frequently  do  not 
rememljer  anything.  And  if  I  do  remember  something, 
or  I  am  reminded  of  something  out  of  my  past,  I  remem- 
ber and  recall  these  things  like  something  told  of  others. 
How,  then,  on  what  ground,  do  I  assert  that  during  all 
the  time  of  my  existence  I  have  been  the  same  ego  ?  I 
have  certainly  not  had  the  same  body :  my  body  has  all 
been  matter,  constantly  flowing  through  something  invisible 
and  immaterial  which  recognizes  this  matter  flowing 
through  it  as  its  body.  My  body  has  changed  completely 
dozens  of  times ;  nothing  old  has  remained :  the  muscles, 
the  entrails,  the  bones,  the  brain  —  everything  has  changed. 

My  body  is  one  only  because  there  is  something  im- 
material which  recognizes  all  this  changing  body  as  one 
and  its  own.  This  immaterial  something  is  what  we  call 
consciousness:  it  alone  holds  the  body  together  and 
recognizes  it  as  one  and  its  own.  Without  this  conscious- 
ness of  self  as  apart  from  everything  else,  I  should  not 
know  anything  about  my  own  nor  about  any  other  life. 
And  so  it  would  appear  at  first  thought  that  the  foundation 
of  everything,  consciousness,  must  be  something  constant. 


ON   LIFE  353 

During  our  whole  life  we  have  had  repeated  the  phenom- 
enon of  sleep,  which  seems  very  simple  to  us  because 
we  all  sleep  every  day,  but  which  is  positively  incom- 
prehensible if  we  admit,  what  we  cannot  help  but  admit, 
that  during  sleep  consciousness  is  frequently  interrupted. 

Every  twenty-four  hours,  during  full  sleep,  consciousness 
comes  to  a  sudden  stop  and  is  later  renewed.  And  yet 
this  consciousness  is  the  only  foundation  which  holds 
the  whole  body  together  and  recognizes  it  as  its  own. 
It  would  seem  that  with  the  cessation  of  consciousness 
the  body  ought  to  fall  to  pieces  and  lose  its  entity  ;  but 
this  is  not  the  case,  either  in  natural  or  in  artificial  sleep. 

But  not  only  is  the  consciousness,  which  holds  the 
whole  body  together,  periodically  disrupted,  and  the  body 
does  not  fall  to  pieces,  but  this  consciousness,  in  addition, 
changes  as  much  as  the  body.  As  there  is  nothing  in 
common  between  the  matter  of  my  present  body  and 
what  it  was  ten  years  ago,  as  there  has  not  been  one  body, 
so  there  has  not  been  in  me  one  consciousness.  My 
consciousness  when  I  was  a  child  of  three  years  of  age 
and  now  are  as  different  as  the  matter  of  my  present 
body  and  that  of  my  body  thirty  years  ago.  There  is  not 
one  consciousness,  but  only  a  series  of  consecutive  con- 
sciousnesses, which  may  be  broken  up  to  infinity. 

Thus,  the  consciousness  which  holds  the  whole  body 
together  and  recognizes  it  as  its  own  is  not  a  unit  but 
something  which  is  interrupted  and  transformed.  There 
is  not  in  man  the  one  consciousness  of  self,  as  we  gen- 
erally imagine  it  to  be  in  us,  any  more  than  there  is  one 
body.  There  is  not  in  man  one  and  the  same  body,  nor 
that  one  something  which  separates  this  body  from  every- 
thing else,  —  there  is  not  the  consciousness  of  constantly 
one  man,  one  during  his  whole  life ;  but  there  is  only  a 
series  of  consecutive  consciousnesses,  which  are  held 
together  by  something,  —  and  man  still  feels  himself  to 
be  one. 


354  ON   LIFE 

Our  body  is  not  one  ;  and  that  which  recognizes  this 
changeable  body  as  one  and  our  own  is  not  continuous  in 
time,  but  only  a  series  of  varying  consciousnesses,  and  we 
have  many  times  lost  our  body  and  these  conscious- 
nesses ;  we  lose  the  body  constantly  and  we  lose  con- 
sciousness every  day,  when  we  fall  asleep,  and  every  day 
and  hour  we  feel  in  ourselves  the  changes  of  this 
consciousness,  and  are  not  in  the  least  afraid  of  it. 
Consequently,  if  there  is  such  an  ego,  which  we  are  afraid 
we  shall  lose  at  death,  this  ego  cannot  be  in  the  body 
which  we  call  our  own,  or  in  the  consciousness  which  we 
call  our  own  at  a  given  time,  but  in  something  different, 
which  unites  the  whole  series  of  consecutive  conscious- 
nesses into  one. 

What  is  this  something  which  binds  together  my  funda- 
mental and  individual  ego,  which  is  not  composed  of  my 
body  and  of  a  series  of  consciousnesses  which  take  place 
in  it,  but  that  fundamental  ego  on  which,  as  on  a  wire, 
are  strung,  one  after  another,  the  various  temporally  con- 
secutive consciousnesses  ?  The  question  seems  very  pro- 
found and  wise,  and  yet  there  is  not  a  child  that  does  not 
know  an  answer  to  it  and  does  not  utter  this  answer 
twenty  times  a  day.  "  /  love  this,  and  /  do  not  love 
that."  These  words  are  very  simple,  and  yet  in  them  lies 
the  solution  of  the  question  as  to  what  this  special  ego  is 
which  binds  together  all  the  consciousnesses.  It  is  that 
ego  which  loves  this  and  does  not  love  that.  Why  a 
man  loves  this  and  does  not  love  that,  no  one  knows,  and 
yet  it  is  that  which  forms  the  basis  of  the  life  of  each 
man ;  it  is  that  which  binds  together  all  the  temporally 
variant  conditions  of  consciousness  of  each  individual  man. 
The  external  world  acts  on  all  men  alike,  but  the  injpres- 
sions  of  men  who  are  placed  even  under  identical  condi- 
tions are  endlessly  varied,  both  as  to  the  number  of 
impressions  received  and  capable  of  infinite  division,  and 
as  to  their  strength.     Of  these  impressions  the  series  of 


ON    LIFE  355 

consecutive  consciousnesses  of  each  man  is  composed. 
But  all  these  consecutive  consciousnesses  are  bound 
together  for  the  same  reason  that  in  the  present  some 
impressions  act,  and  others  do  uot  act,  on  his  conscious- 
ness. Now  certain  impressions  act  upon  a  man,  or  do 
not  act  upon  him,  because  he  loves  this  more  or  less,  and 
does  not  love  that. 

Only  in  consequence  of  this  greater  or  lesser  degree  of 
love  there  is  formed  m  man  a  certain  series  of  such  or 
such  impressions.  Thus,  it  is  notliing  but  the  property  of 
loving  this  more  or  less,  and  of  not  loving  that,  that  is 
this  special  and  fundamental  ego  of  man,  in  which  are 
collected  all  the  scattered  and  interrupted  consciousnesses. 
Though  this  property  is  developed  during  our  life,  it  is 
brought  by  us  into  tliis  life  from  some  invisible  and 
uncognizable  past. 

This  special  property  of  man  to  love  one  thing  in  a 
greater  or  lesser  degree,  and  not  to  love  another,  is  gen- 
erally called  character.  By  this  word  is  frequently  under- 
stood the  peculiarity  of  the  properties  of  every  individual 
man,  formed  in  consequence  of  certain  conditions  of  time 
and  place.  But  that  is  not  correct.  The  fundamental 
property  of  man  to  love  one  thing  more  or  less,  and  not 
to  love  another  thing,  is  not  due  to  spatial  and  temporal 
conditions,  but,  on  the  contrary,  spatial  and  temporal  con- 
ditions act  upon  a  man,  or  do  uot  act  upon  him,  because  a 
man,  upon  entering  into  the  world,  has  already  a  very 
definite  property  of  loving  one  thing  and  not  loving 
another.  This  is  the  only  reason  why  men  who  are  born 
and  brought  up  under  precisely  the  same  spatial  and  tem- 
poral conditions  frequently  present  sharp  contrasts  as  to 
their  inner  ego. 

What  unites  all  the  scattered  consciousnesses,  which  in 
their  turn  unite  into  one  in  our  body,  is  something  quite 
definite,  though  independent  of  spatial  and  temporal  con- 
ditions, and  is  my  real  and  actual  ego.     Myself  I  under- 


356  ON    LIFE 

staud  as  this  fundamental  property ;  if  I  know  any  other 
men,  I  know  them  only  as  some  special  relations  to  the 
world.  When  we  enter  into  serious  sxjiritual  communion 
with  men,  we  are  certainly  not  guided  by  their  external 
signs,  but  try  to  penetrate  into  their  essence,  that  is,  to 
understand  what  their  relation  is  to  the  world,  what  they 
love  and  to  what  extent,  and  what  they  do  not  love. 

Every  separate  animal,  a  horse,  a  dog,  a  cow,  if  I  know 
it  and  have  a  serious  spiritual  communion  with  it,  is 
known  to  me  not  by  external  signs  but  by  its  special 
relation  which  it  bears  to  the  world,  —  that  is,  what,  and 
to  what  extent,  each  of  them  loves,  and  what  it  does  not 
love.  If  I  know  especial  different  breeds  of  animals,  I 
know  them,  strictly  speaking,  not  so  much  by  external 
signs  as  by  this,  that  each  of  them  —  a  lion,  a  fish,  a 
spider  —  represents  a  common  special  relation  to  the 
world.  All  lions  in  general  like  one  thing,  all  fishes 
something  else,  and  all  spiders  still  something  else ;  even 
because  they  all  like  something  else  they  present  them- 
selves to  my  consciousness  as  different  hviug  beings. 

The  fact  that  I  do  not  yet  distinguish  in  each  of  these 
beings  its  special  relation  to  the  world  does  not  prove 
that  it  does  not  exist,  but  only  that  this  special  relation  to 
the  world,  which  forms  the  life  of  one  individual  spider,  is 
removed  from  that  relation  to  the  world  in  which  I  am, 
and  that,  therefore,  I  have  not  yet  come  to  understand  it, 
as  Silvio  Pellico  understood  his  individual  spider. 

The  foundation  of  everything  which  I  know  of  myself 
and  of  the  whole  world  is  this  special  relation  to  the  world 
in  which  I  am  and  in  consequence  of  which  I  see  the  other 
beings,  which  are  in  their  special  relation  to  the  world. 
But  my  special  relation  to  the  world  was  not  established 
in  this  life  and  did  not  begin  with  my  body  or  with  a  se- 
ries of  temporally  consecutive  consciousnesses. 

And  so  my  body,  wliich  is  united  into  one  by  my  tem- 
poral consciousness,  may  be  destroyed,  and  my  temporal 


I 


ON    LIFE 


357 


consciousness  itself  may  be  destroyed  ;  but  what  cannot 
be  destroyed  is  this  special  relation  to  the  world  which 
forms  my  special  ego,  from  which  everything  which  is  was 
built  up.  It  caunot  be  destroyed,  because  it  is  that  which 
alone  is.  If  it  did  not  exist,  I  should  not  know  the  series 
of  my  consecutive  consciousnesses,  nor  my  body,  nor  my 
life,  nor  any  other  life.  And  so  the  destruction  of  the 
body  and  of  consciousness  cannot  serve  as  a  sign  of  the 
destruction  of  my  special  relation  to  the  world,  which  did 
not  have  a  beginning  or  origin  in  this  life. 


XXIX. 

THE  TERKOR  OF  DEATH  IS  DUE  TO  THIS,  THAT  MEN  REGARD 
AS  THEIR  LIFE  ONE  SMALL  PART  OF  IT,  WHICH  IS 
LIMITED  BY  THEIR  OWN  FALSE  CONCEPTION  OF  IT 

We  are  afraid  that  with  our  carnal  death  we  lose  our 
special  ego,  wliich  unites  into  one  both  the  body  and  the 
series  of  consciousnesses  as  manifested  in  time ;  but  this 
special  ego  did  not  begin  with  my  birth,  and  so  the  inter- 
ruption of  a  certain  temporal  consciousness  cannot  destroy 
that  which  unites  into  one  all  the  temporal  conscious- 
nesses. 

The  carnal  death,  indeed,  destroys  what  holds  the  body 
together,  —  the  consciousness  of  the  temporal  life.  But 
this  takes  place  with  us  all  the  time,  every  day,  whenever 
we  fall  asleep.  The  question  is  as  to  whether  the  carnal 
death  destroys  what  unites  all  the  consecutive  conscious- 
nesses into  one,  that  is,  my  special  relation  to  the  world. 
In  order  that  we  may  affirm  this,  we  must  first  prove  that 
this  special  relation  to  the  world,  which  unites  into  one 
all  the  consecutive  consciousnesses,  was  born  with  my 
carual  existence,  and  so  will  die  with  it.  But  this  is  not 
true. 

Judging  on  the  basis  of  my  consciousness,  I  see  that 
that  which  has  united  all  my  consciousnesses  into  one,  — 
a  certain  susceptibility  for  one  thing  and  coldness  for 
another,  in  consequence  of  which  one  thing  remains  in 
me  and  another  disappears,  the  degree  of  my  love  of  the 
good  and  hatred  of  the  evil,  —  that  this  my  special  rela- 
tion to  the  world,  which  forms  me,  my  individual  me,  is 

358 


ON   LIFE  359 

not  the  product  of  some  external  cause,  but  the  funda- 
mental cause  of  all  the  remaining  phenomena  of  my  life. 

But  judging  on  the  basis  of  observation,  it  appears  to  me 
at  first  that  the  causes  of  the  peculiarity  of  my  ego  lie  in 
the  pecuharities  of  my  parents  and  of  the  conditions  which 
have  acted  upon  me  and  upon  them ;  but,  continuing  to 
reason  on  this  path,  I  cannot  help  but  see  that  if  my 
special  ego  lies  in  the  peculiarity  of  my  parents  and  of 
the  conditions  which  have  acted  upon  them,  it  lies  also 
in  the  peculiarity  of  all  my  ancestors  and  in  the  condi- 
tions of  their  existence  —  ad  infinitum,  that  is,  they  are 
outside  time  and  space,  so  that  my  special  ego  originated 
outside  of  space  and  outside  of  time,  that  is,  precisely 
what  I  am  conscious  of. 

In  tliis,  and  only  in  this  extra-temporal  and  extra- 
spatial  basis  of  my  special  relation  to  the  world,  which 
unites  all  my  remembered  consciousnesses  and  the  con- 
sciousnesses which  preceded  my  remembered  life  (as 
Plato  says  and  as  we  all  feel),  —  in  this,  in  this  basis,  in  my 
special  relation  to  the  world,  hes  this  special  ego  which 
we  are  afraid  will  be  destroyed  with  the  carnal  death. 

But  we  need  only  understand  that  what  unites  all  the 
consciousnesses  into  one,  what  is  man's  special  ego,  is 
outside  of  time  and  has  always  been,  and  that  what  can 
be  interrupted  is  only  a  series  of  consciousnesses  of  a 
certain  time,  in  order  that  it  may  be  clear  that  the  de- 
struction of  the  consciousness  last  in  time,  at  the  carnal 
death,  can  as  little  interrupt  the  true  human  ego  as  the 
daily  sleep.  Not  one  man  is  afraid  of  falling  asleep, 
though  in  sleep  the  same  takes  place  as  at  death,  namely, 
consciousness  in  time  is  interrupted.  Man  is  not  afraid 
of  falling  asleep,  though  the  destruction  of  consciousness 
is  precisely  the  same  as  at  death,  not  because  he  has  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  he  has  fallen  asleep  and  awakened 
again  before,  and  so  vnll  waken  even  now  (this  reflection 
is  not  correct :  he  may  have  wakened  a  thousand  times, 


360 


ON   LIFE 


and  not  waken  the  thousand  and  first  time),  —  no  one 
ever  makes  this  reflection,  and  it  would  not  calm  him ; 
but  man  knows  that  his  true  ego  lives  outside  of  time, 
and  that,  therefore,  the  interruption  of  his  consciousness, 
as  manifested  in  time,  cannot  impair  his  life. 

If  a  man  fell  asleep,  as  in  the  fairy  tales,  for  a  thousand 
years,  he  would  fall  asleep  just  as  calmly  as  when  he 
falls  asleep  for  two  hours.  For  the  consciousness  of  the 
non-temporal,  true  life  a  million  years  of  interruption  or 
eight  hours  are  the  same,  for  time  does  not  exist  for  such 
a  life. 

When  the  body  is  destroyed,  the  consciousness  of  the 
present  day  will  be  destroyed. 

It  is  time  that  man  became  accustomed  to  the  trans- 
formation of  his  body  and  the  exchange  of  one   series  of 
temporal    consciousnesses    for    another.      These    changes 
began  as  far  back  as  man   can   remember  himself,  and 
they  have  taken   place  without  cessation.     Man  is   not 
afraid  of  the  changes  of  his  body,  and  not  only  is  not  ter- 
rified, but  very  frequently  desires  an  acceleration  of  these 
changes,  —  desires  to  grow,  to  arrive  at  man's  estate,  to 
be  cured.     Man  was  a  red  piece  of  flesh,  and  all  his  con- 
sciousness consisted  in  the  demands  of  his  stomach :  now 
he  is  a   bearded,  sensible  man,  or  a  woman  who  loves 
grown-up  children.     There  is  nothing  in  the  body  or  in 
the  consciousness  like  what  it  was,  and  man  is  not  fright- 
ened at  these  changes  which  have  brought  him  to  the 
present    condition,   but    hails    them    with    joy.      Where, 
then,  is  the  terror  in   the  imminent  cliauge  ?     The  de- 
struction ?     But  that  on  which   all   these    changes   take 
place,  —  the  special  relation  to  the  world,  —  that  in  which 
the  consciousness  of  the  true  life  consists,  did  not  begin 
with  the  birth  of  the  body,  but  outside  of  the  body  and 
outside  of  time.     How,  then,  can  any  temporal  and  spa- 
tial change  destroy  what  is  outside  of  it  ?     Man   arrests 
his  attention  on  a  small,  tiny  part  of  his  life,  does  not 


ON    LIFE  361 

want  to  see  the  whole  of  it,  and  trembles  lest  this  tiny 
I  and  beloved  particle  disappear  from  view.  This  reminds 
me  of  the  anecdote  of  that  madman  who  imagined  that 
he  was  made  of  glass  and  when  he  was  dropped  said, 
"  Crash  ! "  and  immediately  died.  In  order  that  man  may 
have  life,  he  must  take  all  of  it,  and  not  a  small  part  of  it 
as  manifested  in  time  and  space.  To  him  who  takes  the 
whole  of  life,  it  shall  be  given,  but  from  him  who  takes 
part  of  it,  even  that  which  he  has  will  be  taken  from  him. 


XXX. 

LIFE  IS  A  EELATION  TO  THE  WORLD.  THE  MOTION  OF 
LIFE  IS  THE  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  A  NEW,  HIGHEE 
RELATION,  AND  SO  DEATH  IS  THE  ENTRANCE  INTO 
A    NEW   RELATION 

Life  we  cannot  understand  otherwise  than  as  a  certain 
relation  to  the  world  :  thus  we  understand  life  in  our- 
selves and  thus  we  understand  it  also  in  other  beiugs. 

But  in  ourselves  we  understand  life  not  only  as  a  once 
established  relation  to  the  world,  but  also  as  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  new  relation  to  the  world  through  a 
greater  and  ever  greater  subjection  of  the  animal  person- 
ality to  reason,  and  as  a  manifestation  of  a  greater  degree 
of  love.  That  inevitable  destruction  of  the  carnal  exist- 
ence which  we  see  in  ourselves,  shows  us  that  the 
relation  in  which  we  are  toward  the  world  is  not  con- 
stant, and  that  we  are  obliged  to  establish  another  rela- 
tion. The  establishment  of  this  new  relation,  that  is,  the 
motion  of  life,  destroys  the  conception  of  death.  Death 
appears  only  to  him  who,  not  having  recognized  his  life 
as  consisting  in  the  establishment  of  a  rational  relation 
to  the  world  and  to  its  manifestation  in  a  greater  and 
ever  greater  love,  has  stopped  at  that  relation,  that  is,  at 
that  degree  of  love  for  one  and  enmity  toward  another 
with  which  he  entered  into  existence. 

Life  is  an  unceasing  motion,  but,  by  persisting  in  the 
same  relation  to  the  world,  persisting  in  that  degree  of 
love  with  which  he  entered  into  the  world,  he  feels  its 
arrest,  and  death  appears  to  him. 

382 


ON   LIFE  363 

.  Death  is  visible  and  terrible  only  to  such  a  man.     The 
whole  existence  of  such  a  man  is  one  unceasiug  death. 
Death   is   visible   and  terrible  to  him,  not  only  in  the 
future,  but  also  in  the  present,  with  all  the  manifestations 
of  the  diminution  of  the  animal  life,  from  childhood  to 
old  age,  for  the  motion  of  existence  from  childhood  to  ma- 
turity only  seems  to  be  a  temporary  increase  of  forces,  but 
is  in   reality  just  such  an  induration   of  the   members, 
diminution  of  pliabihty  and  vitality,  as  do  not  cease  from 
birth   until  death.     Such  a  man  continually  sees  death 
before   him,  and  nothing   can  save  him  from  it.     With 
every  day  and  hour  the  position  of  such  a  man  becomes 
worse    and    worse,    and    nothing    can    improve   it.      His 
special  relation  to  the  world,  his  love  for  one  and  enmity 
toward  another,  presents  itself  to  such  a  man  as  one  of 
the    conditions    of   his    existence,  and   the  one   business 
of  hfe,  the  establishment  of  a  new  relation  to  the  world, 
the  increase  of  love,  presents  itself  to  him  as  unnecessary. 
His  whole  life  passes  in  the  impossible,  —  in  the  attempt 
at  liberating  himself  from  the  inevitable  diminution  of 
life,  in  its  induration,  weakening,  aging,  and  death. 

But  not  so  for  a  man  who  understands  life.  Such  a 
man  knows  that  he  has  brought  into  his  present  life  his 
special  relation  to  the  world,  his  love  for  one  and  enmity 
toward  another  from  the  past  which  is  concealed  from 
him.  He  knows  that  this  his  love  for  one  and  enmity 
toward  another  which  is  carried  by  him  into  his  existence, 
is  the  very  essence  of  his  life ;  that  it  is  not  an  accidental 
property  of  his  life,  but  that  this  alone  has  the  motion  of 
life,  —  and  he  places  his  life  in  this  motion  alone,  in  the 
increase  of  love. 

Looking  at  his  past  in  this  life,  he  sees,  by  the  series  of 
cognitions  which  is  intelligible  to  him,  that  his  relation  to 
the  world  has  changed,  the  subjection  to  the  law  of  reason 
has  increased  and  the  power  and  sphere  of  love  has  in- 
creased all  the  time,  without  cessation,  giving  him  an 


364  ON    LIFE 

ever  increasing  good  independeutly  of,  and  sometimes 
directly  in  inverse  proportion  to,  the  existence  of  per- 
sonality. 

Such  a  man,  who  accepts  his  life  from  the  invisible 
past,  and  recognizes  its  constant  uninterrupted  growth, 
endures  it  and  looks  into  the  future,  not  only  calmly,  but 
even  with  joy. 

They  say  that  disease,  old  age,  debility,  dotage  are  the 
destruction  of  man's  consciousness  and  life.  For  what 
man  ?  I  imagine  John  the  Divine  falling,  according  to 
the  tradition,  from  old  age  into  childhood.  According 
to  the  tradition  he  says  nothing  but  this :  "  Brethren, 
love  one  another ! "  The  barely  moving  old  man  of  one 
hundred  years,  with  tearful  eyes,  lisps  only  these  three 
words,  "  Love  one  another  ! "  In  such  a  man  the  animal 
existence  is  barely  flickering,  —  it  is  all  consumed  by  the 
new  relation  to  the  world,  the  new  living  being,  which 
no  longer  tinds  its  place  in  the  existence  of  the  carnal 
man. 

For  a  man  who  understands  life  as  it  actually  is  to 
speak  of  the  diminution  of  his  hfe  with  diseases  and  old 
age,  and  to  grieve  about  it,  is  the  same  as  though  a  man 
on  approaching  the  light  should  grieve  about  the  diminu- 
tion of  his  shadow,  in  proportion  as  he  walks  up  to  the 
light.  To  believe  in  the  destruction  of  one's  life,  because 
the  body  is  destroyed,  is  the  same  as  believing  that  the 
destruction  of  the  shadow  of  an  object,  when  this  object 
has  entered  into  the  full  light,  is  a  sure  sign  that  the 
object  itself  is  annihilated.  Such  a  conclusion  could  be 
made  only  by  a  man  who  has  looked  for  so  long  a  time 
into  the  shadow  that  at  last  he  comes  to  imagine  that  the 
shadow  is  the  object  itself. 

But  to  a  man  who  knows  himself,  not  from  the  reflec- 
tion in  his  spatial  and  temporal  existence,  but  from  his 
increased  love  relation  to  the  world,  the  destruction  of 
the  shadow  of  his  spatial  and  temporal  relations  is  only  a 


ON   LIFE  365 

sign  of  a  greater  degree  of  light.  For  a  man  who  under- 
stands his  life  as  a  certain  special  relation  to  the  world, 
with  wliich  he  entered  into  existence,  and  which  grew  in 
his  life  with  the  increase  of  love,  to  believe  in  his  annihi- 
lation is  the  same  as  though  a  man  who  knows  the  exter- 
nal visible  laws  of  the  world  should  believe  that  his 
mother  found  him  under  a  cabbage-leaf,  and  that  his  body 
will  suddenly  fly  away  somewhere,  so  that  nothing  will 
be  left. 


XXXI. 

THE    LIFE    OF    DEAD    PEOPLE    DOES    NOT    CEASE    IN     THIS 

WOELD 

And  still  more,  I  shall  not  say  on  the  other  hand,  but 
according  to  the  very  essence  of  life,  as  we  cognize  it, 
does  the  superstition  of  death  become  clear  to  us.  My 
friend,  my  brother  lived  just  as  I  do,  and  now  he  has 
stopped  living  like  me.  His  life  was  his  consciousness 
and  took  place  under  the  conditions  of  his  bodily  exist- 
ence ;  consequently,  there  is  no  place  and  no  time  for  the 
manifestation  of  his  consciousness,  and  there  is  none  for 
me.  My  brother  was,  I  was  in  communion  with  him, 
and  now  he  is  not,  and  I  shall  never  find  out  where 
he  is. 

"  Between  him  and  us  all  ties  are  broken.  He  does  not 
exist  for  us  and  we  similarly  will  not  exist  for  those  who 
will  be  left.  What,  then,  is  this,  if  not  death  ? "  Thus 
speak  people  who  do  not  understand  life. 

These  people  see  in  the  cessation  of  the  external  com- 
munion an  unquestionable  proof  of  actual  death,  whereas 
by  nothing  is  the  phantasmal  conception  of  death  more 
clearly  and  more  obviously  dispersed  than  by  the  cessa- 
tion of  the  carnal  existence  of  our  friends.  My  brother 
has  died,  what  has  happened  ?  Namely  this,  that  the 
manifestation  of  his  relation  to  the  world,  accessible  to 
my  observation  in  time  and  space,  has  disappeared  from 
my  eyes,  and  nothing  is  left. 

"  Nothing  is  left,"  so  would  a  chrysalis  say  which  has 
not  yet  unfolded  itself  as  a  butterfly,  as  it  observes  that 

3G6 


ON   LIFE  367 

the  cocoon  which  is  lying  near  it  is  empty.  But  the 
chrysalis  would  say  so  if  it  could  think  and  speak, 
because,  having  lost  its  neighbour,  it  would  indeed  feel 
the  neighbour  as  being  nothing.  Not  so  with  man.  My 
brother  has  died  :  his  cocoon,  it  is  true,  is  empty,  —  I  do 
not  see  him  in  the  form  in  which  I  saw  him  heretofore, 
but  his  disappearance  from  my  sight  has  not  destroyed 
my  relation  to  him.  With  me  is  left,  as  we  say,  his 
memory. 

His  memory  is  left,  —  not  the  remembrance  of  his  face, 
his  eyes,  but  the  remembrance  of  his  spiritual  picture. 

What  is  this  memory,  —  such  a  simply  and  apparently 
intelligible  word  ?  The  forms  of  crystals,  of  animab  dis- 
appear, and  there  is  no  memory  left  among  crystals  and 
animals.  But  I  preserve  the  memory  of  my  friend  and 
brother.  And  this  memory  is  the  more  vivid  the  more 
the  life  of  my  friend  and  brother  harmonized  with  the 
law  of  reason,  the  more  it  was  manifested  in  love. 
This  memory  is  not  merely  a  notion,  but  something  which 
acts  upon  me  in  precisely  the  same  way  as  my  brother's 
life  acted  upon  me  during  his  earthly  existence.  This 
memory  is  the  same  invisible,  immaterial  atmosphere 
which  surrounded  his  life  and  acted  upon  me  and  upon 
others  during  his  carnal  existence,  even  as  it  acts  upon 
me  after  his  death.  This  memory  demands  of  me  after 
his  death  the  same  that  it  demanded  of  me  durinir  his 
lifetime.  More  than  this :  this  memory  becomes  for  me 
more  obligatory  after  his  death  than  it  was  during  his 
life.  That  life  force  which  was  in  my  brother  has  not 
only  not  disappeared,  or  been  diminished,  but  has  not 
even  remained  tlie  same,  for  it  has  increased,  and  acts 
more  powerfully  upon  me  than  before. 

His  Mfe  force  after  his  carnal  death  acts  as  much  or 
even  more  strongly  than  before  his  death,  and  it  acts  like 
everything  which  is  truly  alive.  On  what  ground,  then, 
feehng  upon  myself  this  life  force  just  as  it  was  during 


368  ON    LIFE 

the  carnal  existence  of  my  brother,  that  is,  as  his  relation 
to  the  world,  which  elucidated  to  me  my  relation  to  the 
world,  can  I  affirm  that  my  dead  brother  has  no  longer 
any  life  ?  I  can  say  that  he  has  gone  out  of  that  lower 
relation  to  the  world,  in  which  he  was  as  an  animal,  and  in 
which  I  still  abide,  —  that  is  all ;  I  can  say  that  I  do  not 
see  that  centre  of  the  new  relation  to  the  world  in  which 
he  now  is :  but  I  cannot  deny  his  life,  because  I  feel  its 
force  upon  myself.  I  have  been  looking  at  a  reflecting 
surface  to  see  how  a  man  was  holding  me ;  the  reflect- 
ing surface  has  grown  dim.  I  no  longer  see  how  he  is 
holding  me,  but  I  feel  with  my  whole  being  that  he 
is  holding  me  as  much  as  before,  and  so  exists. 

But,  moreover,  tliis  invisible  life  of  my  dead  brother 
not  only  acts  upon  me,  but  enters  into  me.  His  special 
living  ego,  his  relation  to  the  world,  becomes  my  relation 
to  the  world.  It  is  as  though  in  the  establishment  of  the 
relation  to  the  world  he  raised  me  to  that  level  to  which 
he  himself  rose,  and  to  me,  to  my  especial  hving  ego,  is 
made  clearer  that  next  step  to  which  he  raised  himself, 
disappearing  from  my  vision,  but  drawing  me  after  him. 
Thus  I  cognize  the  life  of  my  brother  who  sleeps  in  carnal 
death,  and  so  I  cannot  doubt  it;  but,  as  I  observe  the 
actions  of  this  life,  which  has  vanished  from  my  vision 
upon  the  world,  I  become  still  more  indubitably  con- 
vinced of  the  actuality  of  this  life  which  has  vanished 
from  my  vision.  The  man  is  dead,  but  his  relation 
to  the  world  continues  to  act  upon  people,  not  as  in 
his  lifetime,  but  with  an  enormously  greater  force,  and 
this  action  increases  in  accordance  with  its  reasonableness 
and  lovableness,  and  grows  like  everything  which  lives, 
never  ceasing  and  knowing  no  interruptions. 

Christ  has  been  dead  a  very  long  time,  and  his  carnal 
existence  was  short,  and  we  have  no  clear  conception  of 
his  carnal  personality,  but  the  force  of  his  rational  and 
lovable  life,  his  relation  to  the  world  —  nobody  else's  — 


ON    LIFE  369 

acts  even  now  upon  millions  of  people,  who  receive  in 
themselves  his  relation  to  the  world  and  hve  by  it.  What 
is  it,  tlien,  that  acts  ?  What  is  this  which  before  was  con- 
nected with  the  carnal  existence  of  Christ  and  now  forms 
the  continuation  and  ramification  of  tliat  his  hfe  ?  We  say 
that  it  is  not  Christ's  life,  but  its  consequences.  When  we 
utter  such  absolutely  meaningless  words  we  imagine  that 
we  have  said  something  more  definite  and  clear  than  that 
this  force  is  the  living  Christ  itself.  The  same  might  be 
said  by  ants  who  dug  around  an  acom,  which  sprouted  and 
grew  to  be  an  oak ;  the  acorn  gave  way  to  the  oak,  which 
now  tears  up  the  ground  with  its  roots,  drops  leaves, 
branches,  and  new  acorns,  wards  off  the  light  and  the 
rain,  and  changes  everything  which  lived  round  about  it. 
"  This  is  not  the  life  of  the  acorn,"  the  ants  say,  "  but  the 
consequences  of  its  life,  which  came  to  an  end  when  we 
dragged  that  acorn  down  and  threw  it  into  the  hole." 

My  brother  died  yesterday  or  a  thousand  years  ago, 
and  that  same  force  of  his  life  which  acted  during  his 
carnal  existence  continues  to  act  more  powerfully  in  me 
and  in  hundreds,  thousands,  millions  of  men,  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  the  visible  centre  of  this  force  of  his  tempo- 
ral carnal  existence  has  disappeared  from  my  sight. 
What  does  this  mean  ?  I  saw  before  me  the  light  of  the 
burning  grass.  The  grass  has  burned  out,  but  the  light  is 
only  stronger :  I  do  not  see  the  cause  of  this  light,  I  do 
not  know  that  anything  is  burning,  but  I  can  conclude 
that  the  same  fire  which  burned  the  grass  is  now  burning 
the  distant  forest,  or  something  else  that  I  cannot  see. 
The  light  is  such  that  I  not  only  see  it  now,  but  it  alone 
guides  me  and  gives  me  life.  I  live  by  this  light.  How 
can  I  deny  it  ?  I  may  think  that  the  force  of  this  life 
has  now  a  different  centre,  which  is  invisible  to  me ;  but 
I  cannot  deny  it,  because  I  feel  it,  am  moved  and  live  by 
it.  I  cannot  know  what  this  centre  is,  what  this  life  is 
in  itself,  —  I  can  guess,  if  I  am  fond  of  guessing  and  am 


370  ON   LIFE 

not  afraid  of  blundering.  But  if  I  seek  a  rational  compre- 
hension of  life,  I  shall  be  satisfied  only  with  what  is  clear 
and  indubitable,  and  will  not  spoil  that  which  is  clear  and 
indubitable  by  adding  to  it  obscure  and  arbitrary  guesses. 
It  is  enough  for  me  to  know  that  everything  I  live  by  is 
composed  of  the  lives  of  those  who  have  lived  before  me 
and  have  now  been  long  dead,  and  that,  therefore,  every 
man  who  has  fulfilled  the  law  of  life  and  has  subjected 
his  animal  personality  to  reason  and  has  manifested  the 
power  of  love,  has  hved  and  still  hves  in  others  after 
the  disappearance  of  his  carnal  existence,  in  order  that 
the  insipid  and  terrible  superstition  of  death  should  no 
longer  trouble  me. 

In  the  men  who  have  left  after  them  the  force  which 
continues  to  be  active  we  may  observe  also  this,  why 
they,  who  subjected  their  personahty  to  reason  and  aban- 
doned themselves  to  a  life  of  love,  never  could  have  had 
any  doubts  about  the  possibility  of  the  destruction  of  life. 

In  the  lives  of  such  men  we  can  find  the  foundation  of 
their  faith  in  the  uninterruptedness  of  life ;  and  then, 
comprehending  our  own  life,  we  may  find  these  founda- 
tions in  ourselves  as  well.  Christ  said  that  he  would  live 
after  the  disappearance  of  the  phantasm  of  hfe.  He  said 
this,  because  even  then,  during  his  carnal  existence,  he 
entered  into  the  true  life,  which  cannot  cease.  Even 
during  his  carnal  existence  he  hved  in  the  beams  of  the 
light  from  that  other  centre  of  life,  toward  which  he  was 
walking,  and  saw  in  his  lifetime  that  the  beams  of  that 
light  were  illuminating  the  people  round  about  him.  The 
same  is  seen  by  every  man  who  renounces  his  personality 
and  lives  a  rational  hfe  of  love. 

No  matter  how  narrow  the  circle  of  a  man's  activity 
may  be,  —  whether  he  is  Christ,  or  Socrates,  or  a  good,  in- 
glorious, self-sacrificing  old  man,  or  youth,  or  woman,  —  if 
he  lives,  renouncing  his  personality  for  the  good  of  others, 
he  enters  even  here,  in  this  life,  into  that  new  relation  to  the 


» 


ON   LIFE  371 

world,  for  which  there  is  no  death,  and  the  establishment 
of  which  is  for  all  men  the  work  of  tliis  Hfe. 

A  man  who  places  his  life  in  the  subjection  to  the  law 
of  reason  and  in  the  manifestation  of  love  sees  even  in 
this  life,  on  the  one  hand,  the  beams  of  hght  of  that  new 
centre  of  life  toward  which  he  is  walking,  and,  on  the 
other,  that  action  which  this  hght,  passing  through  it, 
produces  on  those  who  surround  him.  And  this  gives 
him  an  indubitable  faith  in  the  undiminishableuess, 
undyingness,  and  eternal  intensification  of  life.  We  can- 
not accept  the  behef  of  immortality  from  others,  —  we 
cannot  convince  ourselves  of  immortahty.  In  order  that 
there  should  be  a  belief  in  immortality,  there  has  to  be 
this  immortality,  and  in  order  that  it  should  be,  we  must 
understand  our  hfe  as  being  immortal.  Only  he  can 
believe  in  the  future  hfe,  who  has  done  his  work  of  life, 
who  has  established  in  this  hfe  that  new  relation  to  the 
world,  which  is  no  longer  contained  in  him. 


XXXII. 

THE    SUPERSTITION    OF  DEATH   IS   DUE   TO  THIS,   THAT   MAN 
CONFUSES  HIS  DIFFERENT  RELATIONS  TO  THE  WORLD 

Yes,  if  we  look  upon  life  in  its  real  meaning,  it  becomes 
difficult  even  to  understand  on  what  the  strange  supersti- 
tion of  death  is  based. 

Thus,  if  you  make  out  what  it  is  that  in  the  darkness 
frightened  you  as  a  phantasm,  you  can  no  longer  recon- 
struct that  phantasmal  terror. 

The  fear  of  losiug  what  alone  exists  is  due  to  this 
alone,  that  life  presents  itself  to  man,  not  only  in  the  one, 
to  him  known,  but  invisible,  special  relation  of  his  rational 
consciousuess  to  the  world,  but  also  in  two,  to  him 
unknown,  but  visible  relations :  his  animal  relation  and 
the  relation  of  his  body  to  the  world.  Everything  in 
existence  presents  itself  to  man  :  (1)  as  the  relation  of  his 
rational  consciousness  to  the  world,  (2)  as  the  relation  of 
his  animal  consciousness  to  the  world,  and  (3)  as  the  rela- 
tion of  the  matter  of  his  body  to  the  world.  Failing  to 
understand  that  the  relation  of  his  rational  consciousness 
to  the  world  is  his  only  life,  man  imagines  his  life  also  in 
the  visible  relation  of  his  animal  consciousness  and  mat- 
ter to  the  world,  and  is  afraid  of  losing  his  special  rela- 
tion of  the  rational  consciousness  to  the  world,  when  in 
his  personality  there  is  impaired  the  former  relation  of  his 
animal  personality  and  of  the  matter  composing  him  to 
the  world. 

To  such  a  man  it  appears  that  he  originates  from  the 
motion  of  matter,  passing  to  the  level  of  personal  animal 

372 


ON   LIFE  373 

consciousness.  It  seems  to  him  that  this  animal  con- 
sciousness passes  into  a  rational  consciousness,  and  that 
later  this  rational  consciousness  weakens,  again  passes 
back  into  the  animal,  and  at  last  the  animal  weakens  and 
passes  into  dead  matter,  from  which  it  came.  But  the 
relation  of  his  rational  consciousness  to  the  world  presents 
itself  in  this  view  as  something  accidental,  unnecessary, 
and  perishable.  With  this  view  it  turns  out  that  the 
relation  of  his  animal  consciousness  to  the  world  cannot 
be  destroyed,  —  the  animal  continues  itself  in  its  species ; 
the  relation  of  matter  to  the  world  can  in  no  way  be 
destroyed,  and  is  eternal;  but  the  most  precious,  —  his 
rational  consciousness,  —  is  not  only  not  eternal,  but  is 
only  the  gleam  of  something  unnecessary,  something 
superfluous. 

And  man  feels  that  that  cannot  be.  And  in  this  lies 
the  terror  of  death.  In  order  to  save  themselves  from 
this  fear,  some  people  want  to  assure  themselves  that  the 
animal  consciousness  is  their  rational  consciousness,  and 
that  the  undyiugness  of  the  animal  man,  that  is,  of  his 
species,  his  descent,  satisfies  that  demand  for  the  immor- 
tality of  the  rational  consciousness  which  they  contain  in 
themselves.  Others  want  to  assure  themselves  that  the 
life,  which  has  never  existed  before,  having  suddenly 
appeared  in  the  carnal  form  and  having  vanished  again 
from  it,  will  again  be  raised  in  the  flesh  and  live.  But  it 
is  impossible  for  people  who  do  not  recognize  life  in  the 
relation  of  the  rational  consciousness  to  the  world  to 
believe  either  the  one  or  the  other.  It  is  evident  to  them 
that  the  continuation  of  the  human  race  does  not  satisfy 
the  unceasing  demand  for  the  eternity  of  their  special  ego  ; 
but  the  conception  of  a  life  beginning  anew  includes  the 
concept  of  a  cessation  of  life,  and  if  life  did  not  exist 
before,  nor  always,  it  cannot  exist  later. 

For  either  of  these  the  earthly  life  is  a  wave.  Out  of 
the  dead  matter  rises  the  personahty,  out  of  the  person- 


374  ON   LIFE 

ality  the  rational  consciousness,  —  the  crest  of  the  wave ; 
having  risen  to  the  crest,  the  wave,  the  rational  conscious- 
ness and  the  personahty,  falls  back  to  whence  it  came,  and 
is  destroyed.  To  either  of  these  human  life  is  the  visible 
life.  Man  grows  up,  matures,  and  dies,  and  after  death 
there  can  be  nothing  for  him  ;  what  is  left  after  him  and  of 
him,  whether  his  posterity,  or  even  liis  works,  cannot  satisfy 
him.  He  is  sorry  for  himself,  is  afraid  of  the  cessation  of 
his  life.  He  cannot  believe  that  this  hfe  of  his,  which  has 
begun  here  upon  earth  in  his  body  and  ends  here,  should 
rise  again.  He  knows  that  if  he  did  not  exist  before,  and 
has  appeared  out  of  nothing  and  dies,  his  special  ego  will 
and  can  never  exist  again,  Man  is  cognizant  of  this,  that 
he  will  not  die  only  when  he  will  cognize  that  he  was 
never  born  and  has  always  existed  and  will  always  exist. 
Man  will  believe  in  his  immortahty  only  when  he  will 
understand  that  his  life  is  not  a  wave,  but  that  eternal 
motion  which  in  this  life  is  manifested  only  as  a  wave. 

It  seems  to  me  that  I  shall  die  and  my  life  will  come 
to  an  end,  and  this  thought  torments  and  frightens  me, 
for  I  am  sorry  for  myself.  Wliat  will  die  ?  What  am  I 
sorry  for?  What  am  I  from  the  commonest  point  of 
view  ?  First  of  all  I  am  flesh.  Well,  am  I  afraid  and 
sorry  for  it  ?  It  turns  out  that  I  am  not :  the  body, 
matter,  can  never,  nowhere  perish,  —  not  one  particle  of 
it.  Consequently  this  part  of  me  is  safe,  and  there  is 
no  reason  for  having  any  fears  for  it.  Everything  will  be 
intact.  But  no,  they  say,  it  is  not  this  that  one  is  sorry 
for.  I  am  sorry  for  myself.  Lev  Nikolaevich,  Ivan  Sem^- 
nych.  But  a  man  is  not  what  he  was  twenty  years  ago, 
and  every  day  he  is  different.  So  for  whom  am  I  sorry  ? 
No,  they  say,  it  is  not  this  that  one  is  sorry  for.  What 
I  am  sorry  for  is  the  consciousness  of  myself,  of  my  ego. 

But  this  consciousness  of  yours  was  not  always  one,  but 
there  were  different  states  of  consciousness :  there  was 
one  a  year  ago,  and  a  quite  different  one  before  that ;  aa 


ON  LIFB  375 

far  as  you  remember,  it  has  changed  all  the  time.  Have 
you  taken  such  a  special  liking  for  your  present  conscious- 
ness that  you  are  sorry  to  lose  it  ?  If  it  were  always  one 
with  you,  this  would  be  intelligible  ;  but  it  has  been  doing 
nothing  but  changing  all  the  time.  You  do  not  see  its 
beginning,  and  you  cannot  find  it,  and  suddenly  you  want 
that  there  should  be  no  end  to  it,  that  the  consciousness 
which  is  in  you  should  remain  for  ever.  As  far  back  as 
you  can  remember  yourself,  you  have  been  going.  You 
came  into  the  world  yourself  not  knowing  how ;  but  you 
know  that  you  came  as  that  special  ego  that  you  are ; 
then  you  walked  and  walked,  until  you  reached  the  mid- 
dle, and  suddenly  you  were  both  rejoiced  and  frightened, 
and  you  are  stubborn,  and  will  not  move  from  the  spot,  to 
move  on,  because  you  do  not  see  what  is  there.  But  you 
have  not  seen  even  the  place  from  which  you  have  come, 
and  you  certainly  came ;  you  came  in  by  the  entrance 
gate,  and  you  do  not  want  to  go  out  by  the  exit. 

Your  whole  life  has  been  a  walking  through  the  carnal 
existence :  you  walked  and  were  in  a  hurry  to  walk,  and 
suddenly  you  feel  sorry  because  that  is  taking  place  which 
you  have  been  desiring  all  the  time.  What  you  are  terri- 
fied by  is  the  great  change  of  your  state  at  the  carnal 
death ;  but  such  a  great  change  took  place  at  your  birth, 
and  that  not  only  did  not  result  in  anything  bad  for  you, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  it  resulted  in  something  good,  for 
you  do  not  wish  to  part  from  it. 

What  is  it  that  can  frighten  you  ?  You  say  that  you 
are  sorry  for  your  ego,  with  your  present  sensations  and 
thoughts,  with  your  view  of  the  world,  with  your  present 
relation  to  the  world. 

You  are  afraid  you  will  lose  your  relation  to  the  world. 
What  is  this  relation  ?     What  does  it  consist  in  ? 

If  it  consists  in  this,  that  you  eat,  drink,  beget,  build, 
dress  yourself  in  a  certain  way,  and  assume  a  certain 
relation  to  men  and  animals,  all  that  is  the  relation  of 


376  ON    LIFE 

every  man,  as  a  reasoning  animal,  to  life,  and  this  relation 
can  never  pass  away ;  there  have  been  millions  such,  and 
there  will  be  millions,  and  their  species  will  as  certainly 
be  preserved  as  each  particle  of  matter.  The  preservation 
of  the  species  is  implanted  in  all  animals  with  such  force, 
and,  therefore,  is  so  firmly  grounded  that  there  is  no  need 
of  having  any  fears  on  that  score.  If  you  are  an  animal, 
you  have  no  reason  for  fearing  ;  but  if  you  are  matter,  you 
are  still  better  secured  in  your  eternity. 

But  if  you  are  afraid  of  losing  what  is  not  animal, 
you  are  afraid  of  losing  your  special  rational  relation  to 
the  world,  —  with  which  you  have  entered  into  this  exist- 
ence. But  you  know  that  it  did  not  arise  with  your 
birth :  it  exists  independently  of  your  procreated  animal, 
and  so  it  cannot  depend  on  its  death. 


I 


XXXIII. 

THE    VISIBLE    LIFE    IS    A    PART    OF    THE    INFINITE    MOTION 

OF   LIFE 

My  earthly  life  and  the  life  of  all  other  men  presents 
itself  to  lue  like  this : 

I  and  every  living  man,  —  we  find  ourselves  in  this 
world  in  a  certain  definite  relation  to  the  world,  with  a 
certain  degree  of  love.  At  first  it  seems  to  us  that  our 
life  begins  with  this  relation  to  the  world,  but  observa- 
tions over  ourselves  and  over  other  men  show  us  that  this 
relation  to  the  world,  the  degree  of  love  of  each  one  of  us, 
did  not  begin  with  this  life,  but  has  been  carried  by  us 
into  life  from  the  past,  which  is  concealed  from  us  by  our 
carnal  birth;  besides,  we  see  that  the  whole  current  of 
our  life  here  is  nothing  but  an  unceasing  increase  and 
intensification  of  our  love,  which  never  ceases,  but  is  only 
concealed  from  our  view  by  our  carnal  death. 

My  visible  life  presents  itself  to  me  as  a  segment  of  a 
cone,  the  apex  and  base  of  which  are  hidden  from  my 
mental  vision.  The  narrowest  part  of  the  cone  is  that 
relation  of  mine  to  the  world  with  which  I  first  become 
conscious  of  myself ;  the  broadest  part  is  that  higher 
relation  to  life  which  I  have  now  attained.  The  begin- 
ning of  this  cone,  its  apex,  is  hidden  from  me  in  time  by 
my  birth ;  the  continuation  is  hidden  from  me  in  the 
future,  which  is  equally  unknown  to  me  in  my  carnal 
existence  and  in  my  carnal  death.  I  do  not  see  the  apex 
of  the  cone,  nor  its  base,  but  from  the  part  through  which 
my  visible,  memorable  life  passes,  I  unquestionably  know 

its  properties. 

377 


378 


ON    LIFE 


At  first  it  seems  to  me  that  this  segment  of  the  cone 
is  my  whole  life,  but  in  proportion  as  my  true  life  ad- 
vances, I  see,  on  the  one  hand,  that  that  which  forms  the 
foundation  of  my  hfe  is  behind  it,  beyond  its  borders :  in 
proportion  wdth  life  I  feel  more  clearly  and  more  vividly 
my  connection  with  my  visible  past ;  on  the  other  hand, 
I  see  that  this  foundation  leans  against  the  future,  which 
is  unknown  to  me,  and  I  feel  more  clearly  and  more  vividly 
my  connection  with  the  future,  and  I  conclude  that  my  visi- 
ble life,  my  earthly  life,  is  only  a  small  part  of  my  whole 
life,  which  incontestably  exists  at  both  ends,—  before 
birth  and  after  death,  —  but  which  is  hidden  from  my 
present  consciousness.  And  so  the  cessation  of  the  visi- 
bility of  life  after  the  carnal  death,  just  like  its  invisibil- 
ity before  birth,  does  not  deprive  me  of  the  undoubted 
knowledge  of  its  existence  before  birth  and  after  death. 

I  enter  into  life  with  certain  ready  properties  of  love 
to    the    world    outside    of    me;    my   carnal  existence  — 
whether  it  be  short  or  long  —  passes  in  the  increase  of 
this  love  which  I  brougbt  with  me  into  the  world,  and 
so  I  conclude  indubitably  that  I  hved  before  my  birth 
and  shall  live,  as  after  that  moment  of  the  present  in 
which  I,  reflecting,  now  am,  so  also  after  any  other  mo- 
ment of  time  before  and  after  my  carnal  death.     Looking 
outside  of  me  at  the  carnal  beginnings  and  ends  of  the 
existence  of  other  men  (even  of  beings  in  general),  I  see 
that  one  life  seems  to  be  longer,   another  shorter;  one 
appears  before,  and  is  visible  to  me  for  a  longer  time ; 
another  appears  later,  and  very  quickly  is  again  concealed 
from  me ;  but  in  all  of  them  I  see  the  manifestation  of 
one  and  the  same  law  of  every  true  life,  —  an  increase 
of  love,  —  so  to  speak,  a  broadening  of  the  beams  of  life. 
Sooner  or  later  the  curtain  will  fall  which  conceals  from 
me  the  temporal  current  of  the  life  of  men :  the  life  of 
men  is  still  a  life  exactly  the  same  as  any  other,  and  it  has 
no  beginning  and  no  end.     The  fact  that  a  man  has  lived 


ON   LIFE  379 

a  longer  or  shorter  time  in  the  visible  conditions  of  this 
existence  can  present  no  distinctions  in  his  true  life.  The 
fact  that  one  man  passed  more  slowly  through  the  field 
of  vision  open  to  me,  or  that  another  man  passed  through 
it  more  quickly,  can  by  no  means  compel  me  to  ascribe 
more  actual  life  to  the  one  and  less  to  the  other.  I  know 
without  a  doubt  that,  if  I  saw  a  man  walking  past  my 
window,  —  whether  he  walked  fast  or  slowly,  —  this  man 
existed  before  the  time  when  I  saw  him,  and  will  continue 
to  exist,  even  though  he  is  hidden  from  my  view. 

But  why  do  some  pass  quickly,  and  others  slowly  ? 
Why  does  a  man  hve,  who  is  old,  dried  up,  morally  ossi- 
fied, and,  in  our  opinion,  incapable  of  performing  the  law 
of  life,  —  of  increasing  love,  —  while  a  child,  a  youth,  a 
girl,  a  man  in  the  fuU  vigour  of  his  spiritual  labour  dies, 
passes  out  of  the  conditions  of  this  carnal  life,  in  which, 
according  to  our  conception,  he  has  only  begun  to  establish 
in  himself  a  regular  relation  to  life  ? 

We  may  understand  the  death  of  Pascal,  of  Goethe ;  but 
Ch^nier,  L^rmontov,  and  thousands  of  other  men,  with 
whom  the  inner  work,  as  we  think,  had  just  begun,  whose 
work,  as  we  think,  might  have  been  so  well  accomplished 
here  ? 

But  that  only  seems  so  to  us.  None  of  us  knows  any- 
thing about  those  principles  of  hfe  which  are  brought  into 
the  world  by  others,  about  that  motion  of  life  which  has 
taken  place  in  it,  about  those  obstacles  against  the  motion 
of  life,  which  are  to  be  found  in  this  existence,  and,  above 
all,  about  those  other  conditions  of  hfe,  possible,  but  invis- 
ible to  us,  in  the  which  the  life  of  this  or  that  man  may 
be  placed  in  the  other  existence. 

It  seems  to  us,  as  we  look  at  the  blacksmith's  work, 
that  the  horseshoe  is  all  made,  —  that  he  has  to  strike  it 
but  once  or  twice,  —  but  he  breaks  it  up  and  throws 
it  into  the  fire,  knowing  that  it  has  been  overheated. 

We  cannot  know  whether  the  work  of  the  true  life 


380  ON    LIFE 

has  been  accomplished  in  man  or  not.  We  know  this 
only  of  ourselves.  It  seems  to  us  that  a  man  dies  when 
he  does  not  need  to,  but  this  cannot  be.  A  man  dies  only 
when  death  is  needed  for  his  good,  just  as  a  man  grows 
up  and  reaches  man's  estate  only  when  that  is  needed  for 
his  good. 

Indeed,  if  by  life  we  understand  life,  and  not  the  sem- 
blance of  it ;  if  the  true  life  is  the  foundation  of  every- 
thing, the  foundation  cannot  depend  on  what  it  produces : 
the  cause  cannot  result  from  the  result,  —  the  current 
of  the  true  life  cannot  be  impaired  by  its  change,  by  its 
manifestation.  The  incepted  and  unfinished  motion  of 
man's  life  cannot  cease  in  this  world,  because  he  gets  a 
boil,  or  a  bacterium  flies  into  him,  or  somebody  discharges 
a  pistol  at  him. 

A  man  dies  only  because  in  this  world  the  good  of  his 
true  life  can  no  longer  be  increased,  and  not  because 
his, lungs  hurt,  or  because  he  has  a  cancer,  or  because  he 
was  shot,  or  a  bomb  was  thrown  at  him.  It  generally 
seems  to  us  that  it  is  natural  to  live  a  carnal  life,  and 
unnatural  to  perish  by  fire,  water,  cold,  lightning,  diseases, 
pistol-shots,  or  a  bomb,  —  but  we  need  only  think  seri- 
ously, looking  at  men's  lives  from  the  side,  in  order  that 
we  may  see  that,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  very  unnatural  for 
a  man  to  live  a  carnal  life  among  these  destructive  condi- 
tions, among  these  universally  distributed  and  generally 
fatal  bacteria.  It  is  natural  for  him  to  perish.  And  so 
the  carnal  life  among  these  disastrous  conditions  is,  on  the 
contrary,  something  very  unnatural  in  the  material  sense. 
If  we  live,  this  is  not  due  to  the  fact  that  we  are  taking 
care  of  ourselves,  but  because  in  us  is  taking  place  the 
work  of  life  which  subjects  to  itself  all  these  conditions. 
We  live,  not  because  we  take  care  of  ourselves,  but 
because  we  are  doing  the  work  of  life.  When  the  work 
of  hfe  is  done,  and  nothing  can  arrest  the  unceasing 
destruction  of  the  human  animal  life,  this  destruction  takes 


ON   LIFE  381 

place,  and  one  of  the  nearest  causes  of  the  carnal  life, 
which  always  surround  us,  appears  to  us  as  its  exclusive 
cause. 

Our  true  life  exists,  —  it  alone  we  know,  from  it  alone 
we  know  our  animal  hfe,  —  and  so,  if  its  semblance  is 
subject  to  invariable  laws,  how  can  that  which  produces 
this  semblance  fail  to  be  subject  to  laws  ? 

But  what  troubles  us  is  that  we  do  not  see  the  causes 
and  actions  of  our  true  life  in  the  same  way  as  we  see  the 
causes  and  actions  in  external  phenomena :  we  do  not 
know  why  one  enters  into  life  with  such  properties  of  his 
ego,  and  another  witli  other  properties,  —  why  one  man's 
life  is  cut  short,  and  another  man's  life  is  continued.  We 
ask  ourselves :  what  were  the  causes  before  my  existence 
that  I  was  born  to  be  what  I  am  ?  And  what  will  be 
after  my  death  as  the  result  of  my  living  in  one  way  or 
another  ?  And  we  regret  that  we  do  not  receive  any 
answers  to  these  questions. 

But  to  regret  this,  that  I  am  unable  to  find  out  now 
what  happened  before  my  Hfe  and  what  will  be  after  my 
death,  is  the  same  as  regretting  my  inability  to  see  what 
is  beyond  the  hmits  of  my  vision.  If  I  could  see  what  is 
beyond  the  limits  of  my  vision,  I  should  not  be  able  to 
see  what  is  within  these  limits ;  but,  for  the  good  of  my 
animal,  I  must  above  all  else  see  what  is  around  me. 

The  same  is  true  of  my  reason,  by  means  of  which  I 
cognize.  If  I  could  see  what  is  beyond  the  limits  of  my 
reason,  I  should  not  see  what  is  within  its  limits;  but, 
for  the  good  of  true  life,  I  must  above  all  else  know 
that  to  which  I  am  obliged  now  and  here  to  submit  my 
animal  personahty,  in  order  that  I  may  obtain  the  good  of 
life. 

And  reason  reveals  this  to  me :  it  reveals  to  me  in  this 
life  that  one  path  on  which  I  do  not  see  the  cessation  of 
my  good. 

It  shows  without  a  doubt  that  this  life  did  not  begin 


o82  ON    LIFE 

witli  birth,  but  has  always  been,  —  it  shows  that  the 
good  of  this  life  grows,  increases  here,  reaching  those 
limits  which  can  no  longer  contain  it,  and  only  then 
passes  out  of  those  conditions  which  retard  its  growth,  in 
order  to  pass  into  another  existence. 

Eeason  places  man  on  that  one  path  of  life  which,  like 
a  cone-shaped,  widening  tunnel,  amidst  the  walls  which 
surround  it  on  all  sides,  opens  to  it  in  the  distance  the 
unquestionable  endlessness  of  life  and  of  its  good. 


XXXIV. 

THE  INEXPLICABILITY  OF  THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  THE 
EARTHLY  EXISTENCE  PROVES  MORE  CONVINCINGLY 
THAN  ANYTHING  ELSE  TO  MAN  THAT  HIS  LIFE  IS 
NOT  A  LIFE  OF  THE  PERSONALITY,  WHICH  BEGAN 
WITH    BIRTH    AND    ENDS    WITH    DEATH 

But  even  if  man  could  get  along  without  fearing  death 
or  thinking  of  it,  the  terrible,  aimless  sufferings,  which 
cannot  be  justified  and  which  can  never  be  averted,  the 
sufferings  to  which  he  is  subject,  would  suffice  to  destroy 
every  rational  meaning  which  is  ascribed  to  life. 

I  am  occupied  with  a  good,  unquestionably  useful  work, 
and  suddenly  I  am  seized  by  a  disease  which  cuts  short 
my  work  and  torments  and  pesters  me  without  sense  or 
purpose.  A  screw  has  rusted  in  the  rails,  and  it  must 
happen  so  that  on  the  day  when  it  comes  out,  a  good 
woman,  a  mother,  is  travelling  on  that  train,  in  that  par- 
ticular car,  and  her  children  are  killed  in  her  sight.  An 
earthquake  causes  the  particular  spot  on  which  Lisbon  or 
Vy^rny  stands  to  cave  in,  and  absolutely  innocent  people 
are  buried  alive  in  the  ground  and  die  in  terrible  suffering. 
What  sense  has  this  ?  Why,  for  what  purpose  are  these 
and  thousands  of  similar  senseless,  terrible  accidents  of 
suffering-s  which  afflict  people  ? 

The  explanations  of  reason  explain  nothing.  The  ex- 
planations of  reason  of  all  such  phenomena  always  get 
around  the  very  essence  of  the  question  and  show  more 
convincingly  its  insolubility.  I  have  fallen  sick,  because 
some  kinds  of  microbes  have  settled  somewhere  in  me ; 

383 


384  ON    LIFE 

or  the  children  were  crushed  to  death  by  the  train  in 
their  mother's  sight,  because  the  dampness  affects  the 
iron  in  such  and  such  a  way ;  or  Vy^rny  caved  in,  be- 
cause there  exist  certain  geological  laws.  But  the  ques- 
tion is,  why  such  or  such  people  were  subject  to  these 
terrible  sufferings,  and  how  I  can  free  myself  from  these 
accidents  of  suffering  ? 

There  is  no  answer  to  this.  Reflection,  on  the  con- 
trary, shows  me  that  there  is  no  law  by  which  one  man 
is  subject  to  these  casualties  and  another  is  not,  and  that 
there  can  be  no  such  law  ;  that  theie  is  an  endless  num- 
ber of  such  casualties,  and  that,  therefore,  no  matter 
what  I  may  do,  my  life  is  every  second  subject  to  all  the 
infinite  accidents  of  most  terrible  suffering. 

If  men  made  only  the  deductions  which  inevitably 
follow  from  their  world  conception,  these  people,  if  they 
understand  life  as  personal  existence,  would  not  remain 
alive  a  minute.  Certainly  not  a  labourer  would  work  for  a 
master  who,  hiring  him,  would  reserve  for  himself  the  right 
every  time  when  he  pleased  to  roast  the  labourer  over  a 
slow  fire,  or  to  flay  him  alive,  or  to  pull  out  his  nerves,  or 
do  in  general  all  those  terrible  things  which,  without  any 
explanation  or  cause,  he  did  with  his  labourers  in  full 
sight  of  him  whom  he  was  hiring.  If  men  actually 
understood  life  fully  as  they  say  that  they  understand  it, 
not  one  of  them  would,  out  of  fear  of  all  those  painful 
and  absolutely  inexplicable  sufferings,  which  he  sees  all 
around  him,  and  to  which  he  may  be  subject  at  any 
moment,  remain  ahve  in  the  world. 

But  although  all  people  know  different  easy  means  for 
killing  themselves  and  passing  out  of  this  life,  which  is 
so  full  of  cruel  and  senseless  sufferings,  they  continue  to 
live :  they  complain  of  the  sufferings  and  lament  them, 
but  continue  to  live. 

It  is  impossible  to  say  that  this  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
thorp  aie  more  pleasures  in  life  than  sufferings,  because, 


ON    LIFE  385 

in  the  first  place,  not  only  a  simple  reflection,  but  also  a 
philosophic  investigation  of  life  shows  that  the  whole 
earthly  life  is  a  series  of  sufferings,  which  are  by  no 
means  redeemed  by  the  pleasures ;  in  the  second  place, 
we  know  from  ourselves  and  from  others  that  people  in 
positions  which  offer  them  nothing  but  a  series  of  increas- 
ing sufferings  without  the  possibility  of  alleviating  them 
until  death,  none  the  less  do  not  kill  themselves  and  hold 
on  to  life. 

There  is  but  one  explanation  to  this  strange  contradic- 
tion :  all  men  know  in  the  depth  of  their  hearts  that  all 
kinds  of  suffering  are  necessary  for  the  good  of  their  life, 
and  so  continue  to  live,  foreseeing  them  or  submitting  to 
them.  They  are  provoked  at  these  sufferings,  because 
with  the  false  view  of  life,  which  demands  the  good 
only  for  its  personality,  the  impairment  of  this  good, 
which  does  not  lead  to  any  palpable  good,  must  present 
itself  to  them  as  something  inexplicable  and  so  pro- 
voking. 

Men  are  terrified  at  these  sufferings  and  marvel  at 
them  as  at  something  quite  unexpected  and  unintelligible. 
And  yet  every  man  has  grown  up  with  sufferings  and  his 
whole  life  is  a  series  of  sufferings,  experienced  by  him 
and  imposed  by  him  on  other  beings,  and  it  would  seem 
that  it  is  time  to  get  used  to  sufferings,  not  to  be  terri- 
fied by  them,  and  not  to  ask  oneself  why  and  for  what 
these  sufferings  exist.  If  a  man  will  only  stop  to  think, 
he  will  see  that  all  his  pleasures  are  bought  with  the 
sufferings  of  other  beings ;  that  all  his  sufferings  are 
necessary  for  his  enjoyment ;  that  without  sufferings  there 
are  no  pleasures ;  that  sufferings  and  pleasures  are  two 
opposite  conditions  which  are  evoked  one  by  the  other 
and  are  necessary  one  for  the  other.  So  what  do  the 
questions  mean,  "  Why  ?  For  what  are  these  suffer- 
ings ? "  which  a  rational  man  puts  to  himself  ?  Why 
does   a   man  who  knows  that  suffering  is  united   with 


386  ON    LIFE 

enjoyment  ask  himself  why  and  for  what  there  is  suffer- 
ing, and  not  why  and  for  what  there  are  pleasures  ? 

The  whole  life  of  an  animal  and  of  man,  as  an  animal, 
is  an  uninterrupted  chain  of  sufferings.  The  whole 
activity  of  an  animal  and  of  a  man,  as  an  animal,  is 
called  forth  only  by  suffering.  Suffering  is  a  morbid 
sensation  which  rouses  an  activity  that  abolishes  this 
morbid  sensation,  and  which  evokes  a  state  of  enjoyment. 
And  the  life  of  an  animal  and  of  man,  as  an  animal,  is 
not  only  not  impaired  by  suffering,  but  takes  place  only 
in  consequence  of  suffering.  Suffering  is,  therefore,  what 
moves  life,  and  so  is  what  it  ought  to  be ;  so  what,  then, 
does  man  mean  by  asking  why  and  for  what  there  is 
suffering  ? 

An  animal  does  not  ask  that. 

When  a  hungry  perch  torments  a  minnow,  or  a  spider 
a  fly,  a  wolf  a  sheep,  they  know  that  they  do  what  must 
be ;  and  so,  when  a  perch,  a  spider,  a  wolf,  are  subjected 
to  similar  torments  by  those  who  are  stronger  than  they, 
they,  in  running  away,  defending  themselves,  and  escaping, 
know  that  they  are  doing  everything  which  ought  to  be 
done,  and  so  there  canuot  be  the  slightest  doubt  in  them 
that  what  is  taking  place  with  them  is  as  it  ought  to  be. 
But  a  man  who  is  troubling  himself  only  about  having 
his  legs  healed  over  that  were  torn  off  on  the  field  of 
battle,  where  he  tore  off  the  legs  of  other  men ;  or  who 
is  thinking  only  of  how  he  may,  in  the  best  way  possible, 
pass  his  time  in  the  solitary  confinement  of  the  prison 
after  he  has  directly  or  indirectly  incarcerated  others 
there ;  or  who  is  thinking  only  of  how  he  may  ward  off 
and  escape  the  wolves,  which  are  tearing  him  to  pieces, 
after  he  has  himself  cut  up  and  devoured  thousands  of 
animals,  —  such  a  man  cannot  find  that  what  is  taking 
place  with  him  is  right.  He  cannot  acknowledge  that 
what  is  happening  to  him  is  right,  because,  when  he  was 
subject  to  these  sufferings,  he  did  not  do  everything  whicli 


ON    LIFE  387 

he  ought  to  have  done.  But,  since  he  did  not  do  every- 
thing which  he  ought  to  have  done,  it  seems  to  him  that 
what  is  happening  to  him  is  not  right. 

But  what  is  it  that  a  man  who  is  being  torn  by  wolves 
ought  to  do  except  to  run  away  and  defend  himself  ? 
He  ought  to  do  what  is  proper  for  a  rational  being:  to 
recogui/ce  the  sin  which  lias  produced  the  suffering,  by 
repenting  it,  and  to  recognize  the  truth. 

The  animal  suffers  only  in  the  present,  and  so  the 
activity  which  is  evoked  by  its  suffering  and  is  directed 
upon  itself  in  the  present  completely  satisfies  it.  But 
man  suffers  not  in  the  present  alone,  but  also  in  the 
past  and  in  the  future,  and  so  the  activity  which  is 
evoked  by  his  sufferings  cannot  satisfy  him,  if  it  is  di- 
rected only  upon  the  present  of  the  human  animal. 
Notliiug  but  an  activity  which  is  directed  upon  the 
cause  and  the  consequences  of  the  suffering,  upon  the 
past  and  the  future,  satisfies  a  suffering  man. 

The  animal  is  locked  up  and  tries  to  get  out  of  its 
cage,  or  its  leg  is  broken  and  it  licks  the  aching  spot,  or 
it  is  being  devoured  by  another  and  tries  to  get  away 
from  it.  The  law  of  its  life  is  impaired  from  without, 
and  it  directs  its  activity  to  its  reestablishment,  and  there 
takes  place  what  ought  to  take  place.  But  man  —  I 
myself  or  a  near  friend  of  mine  —  is  sitting  in  prison ; 
I  have  lost  my  leg  in  battle,  or  wolves  are  tearing  me  to 
pieces ;  the  activity  which  is  directed  to  the  flight  from 
prison,  to  the  healing  of  the  leg,  to  defending  myself 
against  the  wolves,  does  not  satisfy  me,  because  the 
imprisonment,  the  pain  in  my  leg,  the  lacerating  of  the 
wolves,  form  only  a  tiny  part  of  my  suffering.  I  see 
the  causes  of  my  suffering  in  the  past,  in  my  own  errors 
and  in  those  of  others,  and  if  my  activity  is  not  directed 
to  the  cause  of  suffering,  to  the  error,  and  I  do  not  try  to 
free  myself  from  it,  I  am  not  doing  what  I  ought  to  do, 
and  so  the  suffering  presents  itself  to  me  as  what  ought 


388  ON   LIFE 

not  to  be,  and  it  grows,  not  only  in  reality,  but  also 
in  imagination,  to  terrible  proportions,  which  exclude  the 
possibility  of  life. 

The  cause  of  the  suffering  is  for  the  animal,  the  viola- 
tion of  the  law  of  the  animal  life :  this  violation  is 
manifested  in  the  consciousness  of  the  pain,  and  the 
activity  wliich  is  evoked  by  the  violation  of  the  law  is 
directed  to  the  removal  of  the  pain ;  for  the  rational 
consciousness  the  cause  of  the  suffering  is  the  viola- 
tion of  the  law  of  the  hfe  of  the  rational  conscious- 
ness :  this  violation  is  manifested  in  the  consciousness 
of  error,  of  sin,  and  the  activity  which  is  evoked  by 
the  violation  of  the  law  is  directed  to  the  removal 
of  the  error,  the  sin.  And  as  the  suffering  of  the 
animal  evokes  an  activity  wliich  is  directed  upon  the  pain, 
and  this  activity  frees  the  suffering  from  its  agony, 
so  the  sufferings  of  the  rational  being  evoke  an  activity 
which  is  directed  upon  the  error,  and  this  activity  frees 
the  suffering  from  its  agony. 

The  questions  as  to  why  and  what  for,  which  rise  in 
a  man's  soul  when  he  experiences  or  thinks  of  suffering, 
show  only  that  he  does  not  yet  know  the  activity  which 
ought  to  be  evoked  in  him  by  the  suffering,  and  which 
frees  the  suffering  from  its  agony.  Indeed,  for  a  man 
who  recognizes  his  life  in  the  animal  existence,  there 
cannot  be  this  activity  which  frees  from  suffering,  and 
the  less  of  it,  the  narrower  the  sense  in  which  he  under- 
stands his  life. 

When  a  man,  who  recognizes  his  personal  existence 
as  life,  finds  the  causes  of  his  personal  suffering  in  his 
personal  error,  —  when  he  understands  that  he  grew  ill 
because  he  ate  something  harmful,  or  that  he  was  beaten 
because  he  himself  went  out  to  fight,  or  that  he  is  hungry 
and  naked  because  he  did  not  want  to  work,  —  he  knows 
that  he  is  suffering  because  he  has  done  what  he  ought 
not  to  do,  and  in  order  that  he  may  not  do  so  again  in 


ON   LIFE  389 

the  future ;  and,  directing  his  activity  upon  the  destruction 
of  the  error,  he  is  not  provoked  at  the  suffering,  and  bears 
it  lightly  and  often  with  joy.  But  when  such  a  man  is 
assailed  by  suffering  which  is  beyond  the  limit  of  the 
visible  connection  of  suffering  and  error,  —  as  when  he 
suffers  from  causes  which  have  always  been  outside  his 
personal  activity,  or  when  the  consequences  of  his  suffer- 
ings cannot  be  of  any  use  either  to  his  personahty,  or  to 
any  other,  —  it  seems  to  him  that  he  is  assailed  by  what 
ought  not  to  be,  and  he  asks  himself  why  ?  what  for  ? 
and,  finding  no  object  on  which  to  direct  his  activity,  he 
is  provoked  against  the  suffering,  and  his  suffering  becomes 
a  terrible  torment.  But  the  majority  of  the  sufferings  of 
man  are  such  that  their  causes  or  consequences  —  at  times 
both  —  are  hidden  from  him  in  space  and  time  :  such 
are  hereditary  diseases,  unfortunate  accidents,  failures  of 
crops,  wrecks,  fires,  earthquakes,  and  so  forth,  which  end 
in  death. 

The  explanations  that  this  is  necessary  in  order  to 
teach  a  lesson  to  future  men,  how  they  should  not 
abandon  themselves  to  those  passions  which  are  reflected 
as  diseases  on  their  posterity,  or  how  they  should  build 
better  trains  and  be  more  cautious  with  fire,  —  all  these 
explanations  do  not  give  me  any  answer.  I  cannot 
recognize  any  meaning  of  my  Hfe  in  the  illustration  of 
the  neglects  of  other  people :  my  life  is  my  life,  with  my 
striving  after  the  good,  and  not  an  illustration  for  other 
Hves.  These  explanations  are  good  enough  for  conversa- 
tion, but  do  not  alleviate  that  terror  before  the  meaning- 
lessness  of  the  sufferings  with  which  I  am  threatened, 
and  by  which  the  possibility  of  life  is  excluded. 

But  even  if  it  were  possible  in  some  way  to  understand 
this,  that,  while  I  by  my  errors  cause  others  to  suffer, 
I  with  my  eiTors  also  bear  the  errors  of  others  ;  if  it  is 
possible  even  most  distantly  to  understand  that  every 
suffering  is  an  indication    of    an  error,  which  must    be 


390  ON  LIFE 

corrected  by  men  in  this  life,  there  is  still  left  an 
enormous  series  of  sufferings  which  cannot  be  explained 
in  any  way.  A  man  is  all  alone  in  the  woods,  where  he 
is  torn  to  pieces  by  wolves  ;  or  he  is  drowned,  or  frozen, 
or  burned,  or  simply  falls  ill  in  sohtude  and  dies,  and 
no  one  ever  finds  out  how  he  suffered,  and  thousands  of 
similar  cases.     Of  what  use  will  this  be  to  any  one  ? 

For  a  man  who  understands  his  hfe  as  animal 
existence  there  is  no  explanation,  and  there  can  be  none, 
because  for  such  a  man  the  connection  between  the  suffer- 
ing and  the  error  is  only  in  phenomena  which  are  visible 
to  him,  but  this  connection  completely  slips  away  from 
his  mental  vision  at  the  time  of  his  death  agony, 

A  man  has  choice  between  two  things :  either,  by  not 
recognizing  the  connection  between  the  sufferings  which 
he  experiences  and  his  life,  to  continue  to  bear  the 
majority  of  his  sufferings  as  torments  which  have  no 
meaning  whatever,  or  to  acknowledge  that  my  errors  and 
my  acts,  which  are  committed  as  the  result  of  them, —  my 
sins,  no  matter  what  they  may  be,  are  the  cause  of 
my  sufferings,  whatever  they  be,  and  that  my  sufferings 
are  a  liberation  and  redemption  of  my  sins  and  of  those 
of  any  other  men. 

Only  these  two  relations  to  suffering  are  possible :  one, 
that  suffering  is  what  it  ought  not  to  be,  because  I  do 
not  see  its  external  meaning,  and  the  other,  that  it  is 
what  it  ought  to  be,  because  I  know  its  internal  meaning 
for  my  true  life.  The  first  results  from  acknowledging 
as  the  good  the  good  of  my  separate  personal  life.  The 
other  results  from  recognizing  as  the  good  the  good  of 
my  whole  life  of  the  past  and  the  future  in  an  uninter- 
rupted union  with  the  good  of  other  men  and  beings.  With 
the  first  view,  the  sufferings  have  no  explanation  whatever 
and  evoke  no  other  activity  than  a  constantly  growing  and 
insoluble  despair  and  infuriation ;  with  the  second,  the 
sufferings  evoke  the  same  activity  which  forms  the  motion 


ON   LIFE  391 

of  the  true  life,  —  the  consciousness  of  the  sin,  the  libera- 
tion from  error,  and  the  suhjectiou  to  the  law  of  reason. 

If  it  is  not  man's  reason,  it  is  the  agony  of  his  suffering 
that  involuntarily  compels  him  to  recognize  that  his  life 
is  not  coextensive  with  his  personality ;  that  personality 
is  only  the  visible  part  of  his  whole  life ;  that  the  external 
nexus  of  cause  and  action,  which  is  visible  to  him  from 
his  personality,  does  not  coincide  with  that  internal  nexus 
of  cause  and  action,  which  is  always  kuowTi  to  man  from 
his  rational  consciousness. 

The  connection  between  error  and  suffering,  which 
is  visible  to  the  animal  only  in  spatial  and  temporal  rela- 
tions, is  always  clear  to  man  outside  these  conditions  in 
his  consciousness.  Suffering,  whatever  it  be,  is  always 
cognized  by  man  as  a  result  of  his  sin,  whatever  it  be, 
and  the  repentance  of  his  sin  —  as  a  liberation  from 
suffering  and  attainment  of  the  good. 

The  whole  of  man's  life  from  the  first  days  of  his  child- 
hood consists  in  nothing  but  this :  in  the  consciousness 
of  sin  through  suffering,  and  in  the  liberation  of  self  from 
error.  I  know  that  I  came  into  this  life  with  a  certain 
knowledge  of  the  truth,  and  that,  the  more  error  there 
was  in  me,  the  more  suffering  there  was  both  of  my  own 
and  of  other  meu  ;  the  more  I  free  myself  from  error,  the 
less  suffering  there  was  of  my  own  aud  of  other  people, 
and  the  greater  was  the  good  which  I  attained.  And  so 
I  know  that  the  greater  the  knowledge  of  the  truth  is 
which  I  carry  out  of  this  world,  and  which  is  given  to 
me  by  my  suff"ering,  even  though  it  be  the  last,  before 
death,  the  greater  is  the  good  that  I  attain. 

The  agony  of  suffering  is  experienced  by  him  alone 
who,  having  segregated  himself  from  the  life  of  the  world, 
and  not  seeing  those  sins  of  his,  by  means  of  which  he 
brought  suffering  into  the  world,  regards  himself  as  inno- 
cent, and  so  is  provoked  at  those  sufferings  which  he 
endures  for  the  sins  of  the  world. 


392  ON   LIFE 

And,  strange  to  say,  the  same  that  is  clear  to  the  reason, 
mentally,  is  confirmed  in  the  one  true  activity  of  life,  in 
love.  Reason  says  that  a  man  who  recognizes  the  con- 
nection of  his  sins  and  sufferings  with  the  sins  and  suf- 
ferings of  the  world,  is  freed  from  the  agony  of  suffering ; 
love  proves  this  in  fact. 

One-half  of  the  life  of  each  man  passes  in  sufferings 
which  he  not  only  does  not  recognize  as  agonizing  and 
does  not  notice,  but  even  considers  his  good,  only  because 
they  are  endured  as  the  consequences  of  error  and  as 
a  means  for  alleviating  the  sufferings  of  beloved  persons. 
Thus,  the  less  there  is  love,  the  more  is  man  subject  to 
the  agony  of  suffering,  and  the  more  there  is  love,  the 
less  there  is  of  the  agony  of  suffering ;  but  a  completely 
rational  life,  the  whole  activity  of  which  is  manifested 
only  in  love,  excludes  the  possibility  of  any  suffering.  The 
agony  of  suffering  is  only  that  pain  which  men  experience 
in  the  attempts  at  severing  that  chain  of  love  for  their 
ancestors,  their  posterity,  their  contemporaries,  which 
unites  the  life  of  man  with  the  life  of  the  world. 


XXXV. 

PHYSICAL     SUFFERINGS     FORM     THE     NECESSARY    CONDITION 
OF    THE    LIFE    AND    GOOD    OF    MAN 

"  Still  it  pains,  it  pains  bodily.  What  is  this  pain 
for  ? "  ask  people. 

"  Because  we  not  only  need  it,  but  also  could  not  live 
if  we  did  not  experience  pain,"  would  reply  he  who  caused 
us  the  pain,  and  made  this  pain  as  little  as  he  could,  and 
the  good  from  this  pain  as  great  as  he  could. 

Who  does  not  know  that  the  very  first  sensation  of 
pain  is  our  first  and  chief  means  for  the  preservation  of  our 
body  and  the  continuation  of  our  animal  life,  and  that 
if  this  did  not  exist,  we  should,  while  we  are  children, 
have  burned  up  and  cut  to  pieces  our  whole  body  ? 
Physical  pain  preserves  the  animal  personality.  And  as 
long  as  pain  acts  as  a  preservative  of  the  personality,  as  is 
the  case  in  the  child,  this  pain  cannot  be  that  terrifying 
torment  as  which  we  know  pain  at  a  time  when  we  are 
in  the  full  force  of  our  rational  consciousness  and  struggle 
against  the  pain,  recognizing  it  as  something  which  ought 
not  to  be.  Pain  in  the  animal  and  in  the  child  is  a  very 
definite  and  insignificant  quantity,  which  never  rises  to 
that  agony,  to  which  it  rises  in  a  being  that  is  endowed 
with  a  rational  consciousness.  In  the  child  we  see  that 
it  sometimes  cries  as  pitifully  from  the  bite  of  a  flea  as 
from  a  pain  that  destroys  its  internal  organs.  The  pain 
of  an  irrational  being  leaves  no  trace  in  the  memory. 
Let  a  man  try  to  recall  his  childish  sufferings  of  pain, 
and  he  will  see  that  he  not  only  has  no  recollection  of 

393 


394 


ON    LIFE 


them,  but  is  not  even  able  to  reconstruct  them  in  his  im- 
agination. Our  impression  at  the  sight  of  the  sufferings 
of  children  and  animals  is  more  our  own  suffering  than 
theirs.  The  external  expression  of  the  suffering  of  irra- 
tional beings  is  immeasurably  greater  than  the  suffering 
itself,  and  so  to  an  immeasurably  greater  degree  provokes 
our  sympathy,  as  we  may  see  in  the  case  of  the  diseases 
of  the  brain,  of  fevers,  of  all  kinds  of  agonies. 

At  a  time  when  the  rational  "consciousness  is  not  yet 
awakened,  and  the  pain  serves  only  as  a  preservation  of 
the  personality,  it  is  not  agonizing ;  but  at  a  time  when 
there  is  in  man  the  possibility  of  a  rational  consciousness, 
it  is  a  means  for  subjecting  the  animal  personality  to  rea- 
son, and  in  proportion  as  this  consciousness  is  awakened, 
it  becomes  less  and  less  a^onizinsr. 

In  reality,  only  when  we  are  in  full  possession  of  our 
rational  consciousness  can  we  speak  of  sufferings,  because 
only  with  this  state  begins  that  life  and  those  conditions 
which  we  call  sufferings.  In  this  state  the  sensation  of 
pain  may  be  expanded  to  the  greatest  and  narrowed  down 
to  the  most  insignificant  proportions.  Indeed,  who  does 
not  know,  without  studying  physiology,  that  there  is  a 
limit  to  sensitiveness,  that  with  the  increase  of  pain  to 
a  certain  limit  sensitiveness  stops,  —  there  is  syncope, 
dulness,  delirium,  —  or  death  ensues.  The  increase  of 
pain  is,  therefore,  a  very  definite  quantity,  which  cannot 
surpass  its  limits.  But  the  sensation  of  pain  may  be 
increased  from  our  relation  to  it  to  infinity,  and  even  so 
may  be  reduced  to  an  infinitely  small  amount. 

We  all  know  how  a  man,  by  submitting  to  pain  and 
recognizing  pain  as  sometliing  which  ought  to  be,  is  able 
to  reduce  it  to  insensibihty,  even  to  the  sensation  of  pleas- 
ure in  enduring  it.  Not  to  speak  of  the  martyrs,  of  Huss, 
who  sang  at  the  stake,  simple  people,  from  a  desire  of 
showing  their  bravery,  endure  without  a  cry,  or  jerking, 
operation?  which  are  considered  extremely  painful.    There 


ON    LIFE  395 

is  a  limit  to  the  increase  of  pain,  but  there  is  no  limit  to 
the  dimiuution  of  its  sensation. 

The  torments  of  pain  are  really  terrible  for  those  men 
who  have  placed  their  life  in  the  carnal  existence.  How- 
can  they  help  being  terrible,  since  the  force  of  reason 
which  is  given  man  for  the  purpose  of  destroying  the 
agony  of  suffering  is  directed  only  to  increasing  it  ? 

In  Plato  there  is  a  myth  about  God's  having  at  first  set 
the  term  of  seventy  years  to  man's  hfe,  but  later,  when  he 
saw  that  men  fared  worse  from  it,  he  changed  it  to  what  it 
is  now,  that  is,  he  made  it  so  that  people  do  not  know  the 
hour  of  their  death.  Just  as  correctly  would  the  rationale 
of  what  exists  be  defined  by  a  myth  which  would  say  that 
men  were  originally  created  without  the  sensation  of  pain, 
but  that  later  it  was  created  for  their  good. 

If  the  gods  had  created  men  without  the  sensation  of 
pain,  men  would  soon  have  begun  to  ask  for  it ;  without 
child  labour  women  would  bring  forth  children  under  such 
conditions  that  only  extremely  few  would  be  left  alive ; 
children  and  young  people  would  ruin  their  bodies,  and 
grown  men  would  never  know  the  errors  of  men  who  lived 
before  them  or  who  are  living  now,  nor,  above  all,  their 
own  errors :  they  would  not  know  what  to  do  in  this  life, 
—  they  would  have  no  rational  aim  in  their  activity,  could 
never  make  their  peace  with  the  thought  of  their  immi- 
nent death,  and  would  have  no  love. 

For  a  man  who  understands  life  as  the  subjection  of 
his  personality  to  the  law  of  reason,  pain  is  not  only  no 
evil,  but  even  a  necessary  condition,  both  of  his  animal 
and  his  rational  life.  If  there  were  no  pain,  the  ani- 
mal personality  would  have  no  indication  of  the  departures 
from  this  law ;  if  the  rational  consciousness  did  not  expe- 
rience any  suffering,  man  would  not  know  the  truth,  —  he 
would  not  know  his  law. 

"  But  you  are  speaking,"  some  will  say  to  this,  "  of  your 
own    sufferings :  how    can    you    deny    the    sufferings    of 


396  ON   LIFE 

others  ?  The  sight  of  these  sufferings  is  the  most  ago- 
nizing suffering,"  these  people  will  say,  not  quite  sincerely. 

The  suffering  of  others  ?  But  the  sufferings  of  others, 
what  you  call  sufferings,  have  never  stopped.  The  whole 
world  of  men  and  animals  suffer  and  have  always  suffered. 
Have  we  really  just  learned  this  ?  Wounds,  mutilations, 
hunger,  cold,  diseases,  all  kinds  of  unfortunate  accidents, 
and,  above  all,  childbirth,  without  which  none  of  us  has 
ever  come  into  the  world,  —  all  these  are  necessary  con- 
ditions of  existence.  It  is  precisely  this  —  the  diminu- 
tion of  it,  the  aid  offered  to  it  —  that  forms  the  contents 
of  the  true  hfe  of  men,  and  to  it  the  true  activity  of  life  is 
directed.  The  comprehension  of  the  sufferings  of  person- 
alities and  of  the  causes  of  human  errors,  and  the  activity 
for  their  reduction  are  precisely  that  which  forms  the 
business  of  the  human  life.  This  is  precisely  why  I  am 
a  man,  a  personality,  —  that  I  may  understand  the  suffer- 
ings of  other  people ;  and  for  this  I  am  a  rational  con- 
sciousness, that  in  the  suffering  of  each  separate  person- 
ality I  may  see  the  common  cause  of  suffering,  —  of  error, 
—  and  may  be  able  to  destroy  it  in  myself  and  in  others. 
How,  then,  can  the  material  of  his  labour  be  the  cause 
of  the  labourer's  suffering  ?  It  is  the  same  as  though  a 
ploughman  should  say  that  the  unploughed  land  is  his 
suffering.  The  unploughed  land  can  be  a  source  of  suffer- 
ing only  to  him  who  wants  to  see  the  land  ploughed,  but 
does  not  consider  it  the  business  of  his  life  to  do  the 
ploughing. 

The  activity  which  is  directed  upon  the  immediate  ser- 
vice of  love  to  the  sufferers  and  upon  the  destruction  of 
the  common  causes  of  suffering  —  of  errors  —  is  that  only 
joyful  work  which  is  incumbent  on  man  and  gives  him 
that  inalienable  good  in  which  his  life  consists. 

There  is  but  one  suffering  for  man,  and  it  is  that  which 
compels  man  against  his  will  to  abandon  himself  to  the 
life  in  which  alone  his  good  lies. 


ON    LIFE  397 

This  sufferiug  is  the  consciousness  of  the  contradiction 
between  his  sinfulness  and  that  of  the  whole  world  on  the 
one  hand,  and,  on  the  other,  the  necessity,  and  not  only 
tlie  possibility,  of  realizing,  through  me,  and  not  through 
any  one  else,  the  whole  truth  in  my  life  and  in  that  of 
the  whole  world.  It  is  impossible  to  allay  this  sufferiug 
by  not  seeing  one's  own  sin,  while  participating  in  the  sin 
of  the  world,  and  still  less,  by  ceasing  to  believe  in  the 
possibility,  as  well  as  in  the  necessity,  of  realizing,  through 
myself,  and  not  through  any  one  else,  the  whole  truth  in 
my  life  and  in  that  of  the  whole  world.  The  first  only 
increases  my  sufferings ;  the  second  deprives  me  of  the 
forces  of  life.  What  allays  this  suffering  is  nothing  but 
the  consciousness  and  activity  of  the  true  life,  which  des- 
troy the  incommensurableness  of  the  personal  life  with  the 
aim,  as  cognized  by  man.  Man  must  involuntarily  admit 
that  his  life  is  not  limited  to  his  personality  from  birth 
until  death,  and  that  the  aim  which  he  recognizes  is  acces- 
sible, and  that  in  striving  after  it,  —  in  the  recognition  of 
his  greater  and  still  greater  sinfulness  and  of  the  greater 
and  ever  greater  realization  of  the  whole  truth  in  his  life 
and  in  the  life  of  the  world  has  always  consisted,  and 
always  will  consist,  the  work  of  his  life,  which  is  insepa- 
rable from  the  life  of  the  whole  world. 

If  it  is  not  the  rational  consciousness,  it  is  the  suffering, 
which  results  from  the  error  in  respect  to  the  meaning  of 
man's  life,  that  against  his  will  pushes  him  on  the  one  true 
path  of  life,  on  wliich  there  are  no  obstacles,  no  evil,  but 
only  the  inviolable,  ungenerated,  undying,  ever-increasing 
good. 


CONCLUSION 

Man's  life  is  a  striving  after  the  good,  and  what  he 
strives  after  is  given  to  him. 

The  evil  in  the  shape  of  death  and  of  sufferings  is 
visible  to  man  only  when  he  takes  the  law  of  his  carnal 
animal  existence  to  be  the  law  of  his  hfe. 

Only  when,  being  man,  he  descends  to  the  level  of  an 
animal,  does  he  see  death  and  sufferings.  Death  and 
sufferings,  like  scarecrows,  frighten  him  on  all  sides,  and 
drive  him  back  to  the  one  open  road  of  human  life,  which 
is  subject  to  his  law  of  reason  and  tinds  its  expression  in 
love.  Death  and  sufferings  are  only  man's  transgressions 
of  his  law  of  life.  For  a  man  who  lives  according  to  his 
law  there  is  no  death  and  no  suffering. 

Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labour  and  are  heavy  laden, 
and  I  will  give  you  rest.  Take  my  yoke  upon  you,  and 
learn  of  me ;  for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in  heart :  and  ye 
shall  find  rest  unto  your  souls,  for  my  yoke  is  easy,  and 
my  burden  is  light  (Matt.  xi.  28-30). 

Man's  life  is  a  striving  after  the  good ;  what  he  is 
striving  after  is  given  to  him,  namely,  life,  which  cannot 
be  death,  and  the  good,  which  cannot  be  evil. 


APPENDIX  I. 

It  is  generally  said  that  we  study  life  not  from  the 
consciousness  of  our  life,  but  in  general  from  without. 
But  this  is  the  same  as  saying  that  we  observe  objects 
not  with  our  eyes,  but  in  general  from  without. 

We  see  objects  outside  ourselves  because  we  see  them 
in  our  eyes,  and  we  know  hfe  outside  ourselves  because 
we  know  it  within  ourselves.  We  see  objects  only  as 
we  see  them  in  our  eyes,  and  we  define  life  outside  our- 
selves only  as  we  know  it  in  ourselves.  But  we  know 
life  in  ourselves  as  a  striving  after  the  good :  and  so,  if 
we  do  not  define  life  as  a  striving  after  the  good,  we  not 
only  are  unable  to  observe,  but  even  to  see,  life. 

The  first  and  chief  act  of  our  cognition  of  living  beings 
is  this,  that  we  include  many  different  objects  in  the  con- 
cept of  one  living  being,  and  exclude  this  living  being 
from  everything  else.  Both  we  do  only  on  the  basis  of 
the  definition  of  life,  cognized  alike  by  all  of  us,  as  a  striv- 
ing after  the  good,  and  of  self,  as  a  being  distinct  from  the 
whole  world. 

We  recognize  that  a  man  on  a  horse  is  not  a  mul- 
tiplicity of  beings  and  not  one  being,  not  because  we 
observe  all  the  parts  which  form  a  man  and  a  horse,  but 
because  neither  in  the  heads,  nor  in  the  legs,  nor  in  any 
other  parts  of  the  man  and  the  horse  do  we  see  such  a 
separate  striving  after  the  good  as  we  know  in  ourselves. 
And  we  know  that  the  man  on  the  horse  is  not  one.  but 
two  beings,  because  we  know  in  them  two  distinct  strivings 
after  the  good,  whereas  in  ourselves  we  know  but  one  such. 

399 


400  ON   LIFE 

Only  thus  do  we  know  that  there  is  life  in  the  com- 
bination of  the  rider  and  horse,  and  in  a  herd  of  horses, 
and  in  birds,  in  insects,  in  trees,  in  the  grass.  If  we  did 
not  know  that  the  horse  wishes  its  own  good  and  a  man 
his  own,  that  the  same  is  desired  by  every  individual 
horse  in  the  herd,  that  the  individual  good  is  desired  by 
each  bird,  bug,  tree,  weed,  we  should  not  see  the  indi- 
viduality of  beings,  and,  not  seeing  the  individuality,  we 
should  never  be  able  to  comprehend  anything  living :  a 
regiment  of  cavalry,  a  herd,  and  the  birds,  and  the  insects, 
and  the  plants,  —  everything  would  be  like  waves  on  the 
ocean,  and  the  whole  world  would  blend  for  us  into  one 
undistinguishable  motion,  in  which  we  should  entirely 
fail  to  find  life. 

If  I  know  that  the  horse,  and  the  dog,  and  the  tick 
that  is  sticking  to  it,  are  living  beings,  and  am  able  to 
observe  them,  this  is  so  because  the  horse,  the  dog,  and 
the  tick  have  their  individual  aims,  each  for  its  own  good. 
But  this  I  know,  because  I  know  myself  as  such  a  being 
which  is  striving  after  the  good. 

In  this  striving  after  the  good  consists  the  foundation 
of  all  knowledge  of  life.  Without  recognizing  the  fact 
that  the  striving  after  the  good,  which  each  man  feels  in 
himself,  is  the  life  and  symptom  of  all  life,  no  study  of 
life,  no  observation  of  life,  is  possible.  And  so  observation 
begins  when  hfe  is  already  known,  and  no  observation  on 
the  phenomena  of  life  can  (as  the  false  science  assumes) 
determine  life  itself. 

Men  do  not  acknowledge  the  definition  of  hfe  as  a 
striving  after  the  good  which  they  find  in  their  conscious- 
ness, but  they  recognize  the  possibility  of  the  knowledge 
of  this  striving  in  the  tick,  and  on  the  basis  of  this  as- 
sumed,  unfounded  knowledge  of  the  good  after  which  the 
tick  strives,  they  make  observations  and  conclusions  as  to 
the  essence  of  life  itself. 

Every  conception  of  mine  about  the   external  life  is 


ON   LIFE  401 

based  on  the  consciousuess  of  my  sLriviug  after  the  good  ; 
and  so,,  only  by  liaving  come  to  understand  wherein  my 
good  and  my  life  consist,  shall  I  be  able  to  know  what 
the  good  and  the  hfe  of  other  beings  are.  But,  if  I  do 
not  understand  my  own  good,  I  shall  never  be  able  to  un- 
derstand that  good  and  the  life  of  other  beings. 

Observations  on  other  beings,  which  strive  after  their 
own  aims,  that  are  unknown  to  me,  and  that  form  a  sem- 
blance to  that  good  the  striving  after  which  I  know  in 
myself,  not  only  are  unable  to  explain  anything  to  me, 
but  certainly  can  conceal  from  me  my  true  knowledge  of 
life. 

To  study  the  life  of  other  beings,  without  having  a 
definition  of  my  own,  is  the  same  as  describing  a  circle 
without  having  a  centre.  Only  by  establishing  one  in- 
variable point  as  the  centre,  are  we  able  to  describe  a 
circle.  No  matter  what  figures  we  draw,  they  will  not  be 
circles,  if  they  have  no  centre. 


APPENDIX    11. 

The  false  science,  in  studying  the  phenomena  which 
accompany  life,  and  purporting  to  study  life  itself,  by  this 
very  intention  corrupts  the  concept  of  life ;  and  so,  the 
longer  it  studies  the  phenomenon  of  what  it  calls  life, 
the  more  it  departs  from  the  concept  of  life,  which  it 
wants  to  study. 

At  first  they  study  the  mammals,  then  other  animals, 
the  vertebrates,  fishes,  plants,  corals,  cells,  microscopic 
organisms,  and  finally  reach  a  point  where  we  lose  the 
distinction  between  animate  and  inanimate,  between  the 
limits  of  the  organism  and  the  non-organism,  between 
the  limits  of  one  organism  and  another.  They  reach  a 
point  where  that  which  cannot  be  observed  presents  itself 
as  the  most  important  subject  of  investigation  and  obser- 
vation. The  mystery  of  life  and  the  explanation  is 
sought  in  commas  and  twinkles  invisible  but  assumed, 
discovered  to-day,  forgotten  to-morrow.  The  explanation 
of  everything  is  sought  in  those  beings  which  are  con- 
tained in  the  microscopic  beings,  and  in  those  that  are  in 
them,  and  so  forth,  ad  infinitum,  as  though  the  infinite 
divisibility  of  what  is  small  were  not  the  same  kind 
of  an  infinity  as  the  infinitely  great.  The  mystery  will 
be  revealed  when  the  whole  infinity  of  the  small  shall  be 
fully  investigated,  that  is,  never.  And  men  do  not  see 
that  the  assumption  that  the  question  finds  its  solution  in 
the  infinitely  small  is  an  undoubted  proof  of  this,  that  the 
question  is  incorrectly  put.  And  this  last  stage  of  mad- 
ness, which  clearly  shows  the  complete  loss  of  sense  in 

402 


ON   LIFE  403 

the  investigations,  is  regarded  as  the  triumph  of  science : 
the  highest  degree  of  blindness  is  considered  as  the  high- 
est degree  of  vision.  Men  have  gone  into  a  bhud  alley 
and  so  show  the  lie  of  the  road  on  which  they  have  been 
travelling.  There  is  no  end  to  their  raptures :  "  We  will 
make  the  microscopes  just  a  little  more  powerful,  and  we 
shall  understand  the  transition  from  the  inorganic  to  the 
organic,  and  from  the  organic  to  the  psychical,  and  the 
whole  mystery  of  life  will  be  revealed  to  us." 

While  studying  the  shadows  instead  of  the  objects,  men 
have  entirely  forgotten  that  object  the  shadow  of  which 
they  have  been  investigating,  and  busying  themselves  more 
and  more  with  the  shadow,  they  have  come  to  complete 
darkness,  and  are  happy  to  find  the  shadow  so  compact. 

The  meaning  of  life  is  revealed  in  the  consciousness  of 
man  as  a  striving  after  the  good.  The  elucidation  of  this 
good,  a  more  and  more  exact  definition  of  it,  forms  the 
chief  aim  and  work  of  the  life  of  all  humanity,  and  now, 
because  this  work  is  difficult,  that  is,  not  play,  but  work, 
people  decide  that  the  definition  of  this  good  cannot  be 
found  where  it  is  put  down,  that  is,  in  the  rational  con- 
sciousness of  man,  and  that,  therefore,  it  has  to  be 
sought  everywhere,  except  where  it  is  shown. 

This  is  something  like  what  a  man  would  do,  who 
would  throw  away  a  note,  on  which  precise  directions  are 
given  to  him,  because  he  cannot  read  it,  and  would  keep 
asking  all  the  men  whom  he  meets  to  tell  him  what  it  is 
he  wants.  The  definition  of  life,  which  is  sketched  in 
man's  soul  with  indelible  letters,  namely,  in  his  striving 
after  the  good,  is  sought  by  men  everywhere  except  in 
man's  consciousness  itself.  This  is  the  more  strange  since 
all  humanity,  in  the  persons  of  its  wisest  representatives, 
beginning  with  the  Greek  utterance,  which  was,  "  Know 
thyself,"  has  always  said  the  very  opposite.  All  the  relig- 
ious teachings  are  nothing  but  definitions  of  life  as  a  striving 
after  the  real,  infalhble  good  which  is  accessible  to  man. 


APPENDIX    III. 

More  and  more  clearly  does  man  hear  the  voice  of 
reason ;  more  and  more  often  does  man  listen  to  this 
voice,  and  the  time  is  coming  and  is  already  at  hand 
when  this  voice  shall  be  stronger  than  the  voice  which 
calls  to  the  personal  good  and  to  the  deceptive  duty.  On 
the  one  hand  it  becomes  more  and  more  clear  that  the 
life  of  personality  with  its  enticements  cannot  give  the 
good,  and,  on  the  other,  that  the  payment  of  any  debt,  as 
prescribed  by  men,  is  only  a  deception,  which  deprives 
man  of  the  possibility  of  paying  the  one  debt  of  man  to 
that  rational  and  good  principle  from  which  he  has  come. 
That  ancient  deception,  which  demands  a  faith  in  what 
has  no  rational  explanation,  is  worn  out,  and  we  can  no 
longer  return  to  it. 

Formerly  they  used  to  say  :  do  not  reflect,  but  believe 
in  the  duty  alone  which  we  prescribe.  Eeason  will 
deceive  you.  Faith  only  will  reveal  the  true  good  of  your 
life  to  you.  And  man  tried  to  believe,  and  believed ;  but 
his  relations  with  other  men  showed  him  that  other  men 
believed  in  something  quite  different  and  asserted  that 
that  something  else  gave  a  greater  good  to  man.  It  became 
inevitable  to  solve  the  question  which  of  the  many  faiths 
was  the  more  correct  one ;  but  this  can  be  decided  only 
by  reason. 

Man  always  cognizes  everything  through  his  reason, 
and  not  through  faith.  It  was  possible  to  deceive  him,  by 
asserting  that  he  cognizes  through  faith,  and  not  through 
reason  ;  but  the  moment  a  man  knows  two  faiths  and  sees 

404 


ON    LIFE  405 

men  who  profess  another  faith  just  as  he  professes  his 
own,  he  is  placed  in  the  inevitable  necessity  of  deciding 
the  matter  by  means  of  his  reason,  A  Buddhist  who  has 
become  acquainted  with  Mohammedanism  and  yet  re- 
mains a  Buddhist  will  be  such  no  longer  by  faith,  but  by 
reason.  The  moment  there  arises  before  him  another 
faith  and  the  question  as  to  whether  he  should  reject  his 
own  or  the  one  which  is  proposed  to  liim,  the  question 
will  inevitably  be  decided  by  reason.  And  if  he,  having 
become  acquainted  with  Mohammedanism,  remains  a 
Buddhist,  his  former  blind  faith  in  Buddha  will  now 
inevitably  be  based  on  rational  foundations. 

The  attempts  which  are  made  in  our  day  to  pour  the 
spiritual  contents  into  a  man  through  faith,  despite  his 
reason,  —  are  the  same  as  attempting  to  feed  a  man  in 
any  other  way  than  through  his  mouth. 

The  communion  of  people  among  themselves  has 
shown  them  that  common  foundation  of  cognition,  and 
they  can  no  longer  return  to  their  former  errors,  —  and 
the  time  is  coming  and  is  already  at  hand  when  the  dead 
shall  hear  the  voice  of  the  Son  of  God,  and,  liaving  heard 
it,  shall  come  to  life. 

It  is  impossible  to  drown  this  voice,  because  it  is  not 
the  voice  of  just  one  person,  but  of  the  whole  rational 
consciousness  of  humanity,  which  finds  its  expression  in 
every  separate  man,  and  in  the  best  men  of  humanity, 
and  now  even  in  the  majority  of  men. 


THOUGHTS   ON   GOD 

From  Tolstoy's  diaries,  private  letters,  memoran- 
dum-books, drafts  of  unfinished  writings,  and 
similar  unpublished  private  papers 

1885-  1900 


THOUGHTS  ON  GOD 


God  is  for  me  that  after  which  I  strive,  that  the  striv- 
ing after  which  forms  my  hfe,  aud  who,  therefore,  is  for 
for  me ;  but  he  is  necessarily  such  that  I  cannot  compre- 
hend or  name  him.  If  I  comprehended  him,  I  would 
reach  him,  and  there  would  be  nothing  to  strive  after, 
and  no  hfe.  But,  though  it  seems  a  contradiction,  I  can- 
not comprehend  or  name  him,  and  yet  I  know  him,  — 
know  the  direction  toward  him,  and  of  all  my  knowledge 
this  is  the  most  reliable. 

I  do  not  know  him,  and  yet  I  always  feel  terribly 
when  I  am  without  him,  and  only  then  do  I  not  feel  ter- 
ribly when  I  am  with  him.  What  is  stranger  still  is  this, 
that  in  my  present  life  I  do  not  need  to  know  him  better 
and  more  than  I  know  him  now.  I  can  approach  him,  and 
I  want  to,  and  in  this  does  my  life  consist,  but  my  ap- 
proach in  no  way  increases  or  can  increase  my  knowledge. 

Every  attempt  of  the  imagination  at  cognizing  him  (for 
example,  that  he  is  a  creator,  or  merciful,  or  something 
like  it)  removes  me  from  him  and  cuts  off  my  approach 
to  him. 

Stranger  still  is  this,  that  I  can  love  him  alone  as  is 
proper,  that  is,  more  than  myself  and  more  than  anything; 
in  this  love  alone  is  there  no  cessation,  no  diminution  (on 
the  contrary,  a  constant  increase),  no  sensuality,  no 
terror,    no   self-satisfaction.     Everything   good    you    love 

409 


410  THOUGHTS    ON    GOD 

through  this  love,  so  that  it  turns  out  that  you  love,  and 
so  live,  through  him  and  by  him. 

So  this  is  the  way  I  think,  or,  rather,  feel.  All  I  have  to 
add  is,  that  the  pronoun  he  somewhat  impairs  God  for  me. 
"  He  "  seems  to  minimize  him. 

To  the  definition  of  God  for  me  it  is  necessary  to  add 
M.  Arnold's  definition,  which  I  have  always  conceived  as 
one,  the  chief,  side  from  which  God  presents  himself  to 
us.  (M.  Arnold  deduces  his  definition  from  the  prophets 
of  the  Old  Testament,  and,  indeed,  before  Christ  it  is 
sufficiently  full.)  God  is  that  endless,  eternal  principle, 
which  is  outside  us,  leading  us,  demanding  righteousness 
of  us.  We  may  say :  the  law  of  human  life  is  God's  will 
in  relation  to  that  part  of  human  life  which  is  in  the 
power  of  men.  I  say  that  this  definition  was  sufficient 
before  Christ,  but  Christ  has  revealed  to  us  that  the  fulfil- 
ment of  this  law,  besides  its  external  obligatoriness  for 
human  reason,  has  also  another,  simpler,  internal  impulse, 
which  embraces  the  whole  being  of  man,  —  namely,  love, 
—  not  of  woman,  child,  country,  and  so  forth,  but  love  of 
God  (God  is  love),  the  love  of  love,  —  that  very  feeling 
of  goodness,  meekness  of  spirit,  joy  of  life,  which  is  the 
blessed,  true,  deathless  life,  characteristic  of  man. 

You  know  God  not  so  much  by  means  of  reason,  not 
even  by  means  of  your  heart,  as  by  the  complete  depend- 
ence felt  in  relation  to  him,  something  hke  the  feeling 
which  a  suckling  babe  experiences  in  the  arms  of  its 
mother.  It  does  not  know  who  holds  it,  who  warms  and 
feeds  it;  but  it  knows  that  there  is  somebody  who  does 
this,  and,  moreover,  loves  this  person. 

I  had  formerly  seen  the  phenomena  of  life,  without 
thinking  whence  they  came,  or  why  I  saw  them. 

Later  I  understood  that  everything  which  I  see  comes 


THOUGUTS    ON   GOD  411 

from  the  light  which  is  the  comprehension ;  and  I  was  so 
glad  of  having  reduced  everything  to  one  principle  that  I 
was  fully  satisfied  with  the  recognition  of  comprehension 
alone  as  the  beginning  of  everything. 

Later,  however,  I  saw  that  the  comprehension  is  the 
light  which  reaches  me  through  a  hazy  glass.  I  see  the 
light,  but  I  do  not  know  what  it  is  that  gives  the  light : 
I  know  only  that  it  exists. 

This  something  which  is  the  source  of  the  light  that 
illumines  me,  and  which  I  do  not  know,  but  of  the  exist- 
ence of  which  I  know,  is  God. 

It  is  remarkable  how  I  could  have  lived  before  without 
seeing  the  unquestionable  truth  that  beyond  this  world 
and  our  life  in  it  there  is  some  one,  something  for  which 
this  world  exists,  and  we  bubble  up  in  it,  burst  and  dis- 
appear, hke  bubbles  in  boiling  water. 

You  say :  "  It  is  impossible  to  understand  how  God 
sat,  —  sat  somewhere  in  eternity,  and  suddenly  resolved, 
'  Well,  I  will  create  the  world,'  and  began  to  create,  say- 
ing all  the  time,  '  It  is  well.'  " 

It  is  true,  you  and  I  cannot  understand  it,  when  we 
ask  nothing,  and  are  suddenly  told  so. 

But  tell  me,  can  we  understand  that  everything  which 
is,  has  been,  and  had  no  beginning  ?     Impossible ! 

And  you  say  that  there  is  a  beginning  to  everything, 
and,  ascending  from  beginning  to  beginning,  you  have 
gone  very  far  and  by  guesses  have  ascended  not  seven 
thousand  years,  but  much  farther.  And  there  you  see 
not  only  the  formation  of  the  earth  and  of  everything 
living  upon  it,  but  also  the  formation  of  the  sun,  and 
much  farther —  But,  no  matter  how  far  you  have  gone, 
you  acknowledge  that  the  beginning  of  all  beginnings  is 
as  far  off  and  as  inaccessible  as  ever.  And  still  you  con- 
tinue seeking  the  beginning  of  beginnings ;  to  this  your 


412  THOUGHTS    ON    GOD 

vision  is  turned,  and  from  tbis,  you  say,  everything  was 
originated. 

Well,  this  very  thing,  not  the  part,  but  the  beginning 
of  beginnings,  I  call  God. 

Consequently,  when  I  say  God,  you  cannot  misunder- 
stand and  condemn  me.  We  both  of  us  know  him,  be- 
cause we  beheve  alike,  and  no  one  can  demand  of  us  that 
we  should  understand  God  as  such  as  he  is  in  the  Book 
of  Genesis. 

We  must  renounce  that  by  means  of  which  we  under- 
stand, our  reason,  that  we  may  understand  him  as  such. 
Even  so  no  one  can  demand  of  Moses  that  he  should 
understand  the  heavens,  the  sun,  and  the  stars  better  than 
the  earth.  The  answer  of  Moses  to  the  question  whence 
we  come  is  the  same  wJiich  you  gave :  "  From  the  be- 
ginning of  begiunmgs,  from  God." 

"  But,"  you  will  say,  "  this  beginning  of  beginnings  is 
far  from  being  that  which  is  understood  by  the  word  God. 
By  this  word  they  understand  a  being  which  cares  for 
men.  They  say  that  he  wrote  the  law  with  his  finger, 
appeared  in  the  burning  bush,  sent  his  son,  and  so  forth ; 
all  that  does  not  exist  in  a  rational  comprehension  of  the 
beginning." 

I  agree  with  such  words.  In  the  beginning  of  begin- 
nings there  is  not  that  God. 

But  as  inexplicable  as  a  hving,  pitying,  loving,  and 
angry  God  is  to  you,  so  incomprehensible  is  to  the  human 
mind  what  he  himself  is,  what  his  life  is. 

Tell  me  what  life  is,  and  I  will  tell  you  what  the  living 
God  is. 

You  say,  "  Life  is  a  false  consciousness  of  its  freedom, 
of  the  gratification  of  its  needs,  and  of  the  choice  between 
them." 

But  whence  did  this  life  come  ? 

You  say,  "  It  was  evolved  out  of  the  lower  organisms." 

But  the  lower  organisms  already  bore  in  themselves 


THOUGHTS    ON   GOD  413 

this  consciousness,  —  and  whence  did  the  lower  organisms 
come  ? 

You  say,  "From  the  infinite  beginning."  This  I  call 
God. 

I  say  :  "  The  consciousness  of  my  life,  the  conscious- 
ness of  freedom  is  God ;  but  this  is  not  all  of  God." 

In  addition  to  this,  that  I  am,  that  I  live,  strive  after 
the  gratification  of  my  needs,  recognize  the  freedom  of  my 
choice,  I  have  also  reason,  which  guides  me  in  my  choice. 

Whence  is  reason  ?  This  reason  seeks  the  beginning, 
struggles  with  man  himself,  vanquishes  him,  subdues  his 
appetites,  enacts  laws  for  him.  Tell  me :  Whence  comes 
this  reason  of  man,  which  enacts  laws  that  are  contrary 
to  the  impulses  of  the  flesh  ? 

You  say  :  "  These  laws  are  from  man." 

But  whence  comes  man's  reason  ? 

"  From  the  evolution  of  the  living  ? " 

And  the  living  from  what  is  not  living  ?  But  even  in 
the  non-hving  there  were  these  germs.  In  the  detached 
parts  of  the  rotating  sun,  there  were  already  the  germs  of 
reason.  And  in  the  sun  and  those  stars,  from  which  the 
sun  broke  loose  ? 

If  there  is  reason,  and  it  is  due  to  evolution,  its  begin- 
ning is  just  as  much  concealed  in  infinity. 

Now  this  beginning  of  the  beginnings  of  reason  is  also 
God. 

Both  with  you  and  with  me  there  exist  the  same  con- 
ceptions of  the  beginning,  which  are,  that  the  beginning  of 
life  and  the  beginning  of  reason  merge  into  one. 

You  point  only  to  the  train  of  your  thought,  and  I  call 
everything  God;  the  reason  I  call  it  so  is  this,  that  I 
must  give  some  name  to  what  you  only  indicate,  and 
what  with  you  breaks  up  into  three  paths  of  thought. 

I  frequently  meet  men  who  recognize  no  God  except 
the   one  which  we    recognize  within   ourselves.     And    I 


414  THOUGHTS    ON    GOD 

wonder.  God  is  in  me.  But  God  is  an  infinite  begin- 
ning ;  how,  then,  and  for  what  purpose  did  he  turn  up  in 
me  ?  You  cannot  help  asking  yourself  about  this,  and  the 
moment  you  ask,  you  must  acknowledge  an  external  cause. 
Why  are  people  not  in  need  of  an  answer  to  this  question  ? 
Because  the  answer  to  this  question  is  for  them  in  the 
reality  of  the  existing  world.  It  is  the  same  according 
to  Moses,  or  according  to  Darwin.  And  so,  in  order  to 
understand  about  the  external  God,  we  must  understand 
that  what  is  actually  real  is  only  the  impression  of  our 
feelings,  that  is,  ourselves,  our  spiritual  ego. 

What  is  God  ?     What  is  God  for  ? 

God  is  all  that  unlimited  which  I  know  as  limited  in 
myself ;  I  am  a  limited  body,  God  is  an  unlimited  body ; 
I  am  a  being  that  has  lived  for  sixty-three  years,  God  is  a 
being  that  hves  eternally  ;  I  am  a  being  that  thinks  within 
the  limits  of  my  understanding,  God  is  a  being  that  thinks 
without  limitation ;  I  am  a  being  that  sometimes  loves  a 
little,  God  is  a  being  that  loves  always  infinitely.  I  am 
a  part,  he  is  everything.  I  cannot  remember  myself 
otherwise  than  as  a  part  of  him. 

When  an  unsolved  question  troubles  you,  you  feel  your- 
self a  sick  member  of  some  kind  of  a  healthy  body,  —  you 
feel  yourself  an  ailing  tooth  of  a  sound  body,  and  you  ask 
the  whole  body  to  help  the  one  member. 

The  whole  body  is  God ;  I  am  the  member. 

One  of  the  superstitions  which  most  puzzles  our  meta- 
physical concepts  is  this :  that  the  world  was  created, 
that  it  came  out  of  nothing,  and  that  there  is  a  creating 
God. 

In  reality,  we  have  no  ground  for  assuming  a  creating 
God,  and  there  is  no  need  for  it  the  (Chinese  and 
Hindoos  do  not  know  this  conception)  ;  at  the  same  time 


THOUGHTS    ON    GOD  415 

God  the  creator  and  the  provider  are  not  compatible  with 
the  Christian  God  the  Father,  God  the  Spirit,  God,  a  par- 
ticle of  whom  lives  in  me  and  forms  my  life,  and  the 
manifestation  and  evocation  of  whom  forms  the  meaning 
of  my  life,  —  God  the  love. 

God  the  creator  is  indifferent  and  admits  suffering. 
God  the  spirit  releases  from  suffering  and  is  always  the 
perfect  good.  There  is  no  God  the  creator.  There  is  I 
who  by  means  of  the  implements  of  the  sensations  given 
to  me  cognize  the  world,  and  know  inwardly  my  God 
the  Father.  He  is  the  beginning  of  my  spiritual  ego, 
but  the  external  world  is  only  my  limit. 

Frequently  people,  who  are  struck  down  with  grief  by 
the  death  of  a  beloved  being,  speak  of  the  evil  which  God 
causes  to  men.  When  people  speak  and  think  thus,  they 
imagine  that  they  believe  in  God  and  pray  to  him. 

God  does  evil.  If  God  does  evil,  he  is  not  good,  —  he 
is  not  love ;  and  if  he  is  not  good,  he  does  not  exist. 

This  is  due  to  the  fact  that  people  are  so  convinced  that 
what  they  do  badly  is  not  only  good,  but  even  excellent 
(as  they  assure  us  that  to  love  [excessively]  their  children 
is  beautiful),  that,  when  they  experience  that  evil  which 
is  only  the  result  of  their  own  mistakes,  —  their  sins,  they 
do  not  accuse  themselves,  but  God.  And  so  they  in  the 
depth  of  their  souls  recognize  God  as  bad,  that  is,  they 
deny  him,  and  so  receive  no  consolation  from  him. 

We  ought  to  do  what  the  Dukhobors  do,  —  bow  to  the 
ground  before  each  man,  remembering  that  God  is  in  him. 
If  we  cannot  do  so  with  the  body,  we  may  with  the  spirit. 

The  consciousness,  the  sensation  of  God,  who  lives  in 
me  and  acts  through  me,  cannot  always  be  perceived. 

There  are  activities  to  which  we  must  abandon  our- 
selves completely,  inseparably,  without  thinking  of  any- 


416  THOUGHTS    ON    GOD 

thing  but  of    this  work.     It  is  impossible  therewith  to 
think  of  God,  —  it  distracts  and  is  unnecessary. 

We  must  live  simply,  without  effort,  abandoning  our- 
selves to  our  preoccupation  ;  but  the  moment  there  appears 
internal  doubt,  struggle,  dejection,  terror,  ill-will,  we  must 
recognize  in  ourselves  our  spiritual  being,  recognizing 
our  connection  with  God,  at  once  transfer  ourselves  from 
the  carnal  sphere  to  that  of  the  spirit,  not  in  order  that 
we  may  get  away  from  the  work  of  hfe,  but  in  order,  on 
the  contrary,  to  gather  strength  for  its  accomplishment, 
in  order  to  vanquish  and  overcome  the  obstacle.  We 
must,  like  a  bird,  move  along  with  the  feet,  having  folded 
the  wings ;  but  the  moment  there  is  an  obstacle,  we  must 
unfold  our  wings  and  fly  away.  And  everything  is  easy, 
and  every  difficulty  will  disappear. 

What  comes  of  this,  that  man  recognizes  his  ego  not  as 
a  separate  being,  but  as  God  who  is  living  in  him  ? 

In  the  first  place  this,  that,  since  he  does  not  consciously 
wish  any  good  for  his  separate  being,  such  a  man  will  not 
deprive  others,  or  will  deprive  them  with  less  intensity, 
of  their  good  :  in  the  second  place,  this,  that  by  recognizing 
God,  who  wishes  well  to  everything  which  exists,  as  his 
own  ego,  man  will  wish  the  same. 

Prayer  is  addressed  to  the  personal  God,  not  because 
he  is  personal  (indeed,  I  know  for  certain  that  he  is  not 
personal,  because  personahty  is  limitation,  while  God  is 
unlimited),  but  because  I  am  a  personal  being.  I  have  a 
green  glass  over  my  eye,  and  I  see  everything  green ;  I 
cannot  help  but  see  the  world  green,  though  I  know  that 
it  is  not. 

This  is  what  has  happened  with  me :  I  have  begun  to 
think  more  and  more  abstractly  of  the  questions  of  life,  — 
of  what  it  consists  in,  what  it  tends  to,  what  love  is,  and 


TUOUGHTS   ON   GOD  417 

I  have  departed  more  and  more  not  only  from  the  con- 
ception of  the  Old  Testament  God  the  creator,  but  also 
from  the  conception  of  the  Father,  of  that  comprehension 
of  the  good,  the  beginning  of  all  life  and  of  me ;  and  the 
devil  caught  me :  it  began  to  occur  to  me  that  it  was 
possible  —  an  idea  which  is  of  especial  importance  for  a 
union  with  the  Chinese,  the  Confucianists,  the  Buddhists, 
and  our  infidels,  the  agnostics  —  entirely  to  obviate  this 
conception.  I  thought  that  it  was  possible  to  be  satisfied 
with  the  mere  conception  and  recognition  of  that  God 
who  is  in  me,  without  recognizing  the  God  in  myself,  that 
God  who  has  put  a  particle  of  himself  into  me.  And, 
strange  to  say,  I  suddenly  began  to  feel  weary,  dejected, 
terrible.  I  did  not  know  why  it  was  so,  but  I  felt  that 
I  had  suddenly  fallen  terribly  in  spirit,  was  deprived  of 
every  spiritual  joy  and  energy. 

And  it  was  only  then  that  I  guessed  that  it  was  so 
because  I  had  departed  from  God.  And  I  began  to  think, 
—  strange  to  say,  —  began  to  divine  whether  there  was  a 
God,  or  not,  and,  as  it  were,  found  him  anew,  and  I  ex- 
perienced such  joy,  and  I  had  such  firm  confidence  in  him 
and  in  this,  that  I  can  and  must  commune  with  him,  and 
that  he  hears  me,  that  these  last  days  I  have  been  expe- 
riencing a  feeling  as  though  I  were  very  happy,  and  I  ask 
myself,  Why  am  I  so  happy  ?  Yes,  there  is  a  God,  and  I 
do  not  have  to  be  troubled  or  fear  anything,  but  can  rejoice. 

I  am  afraid  that  this  feeling  will  pass  and  become 
dulled,  but  now  I  experience  much  joy.  It  is  as  though 
I  had  been  within  a  hair's  breadth  of  losing,  and  even 
thought  that  I  had  lost,  a  very  dear  being,  and  had  really 
not  lost  it,  but  found  out  its  inestimable  value.  1  hope 
that  though  this,  my  most  ecstatic  mood,  may  pass,  much 
of  what  I  have  newly  acquired  will  remain. 

Maybe  it  is  that  which  some  call  the  living  God ;  if 
that  is  so,  I  am  very  guilty  toward  them,  since  I  did  not 
agree  with  them  and  disputed  their  opinions. 


418  THOUGHTS    ON    GOD 

The  main  thing  iu  this  feeling  is  the  consciousness  of 
a  complete  security,  the  consciousness  that  he  is,  that  he 
is  good,  that  he  knows  me,  and  that  I  am  on  all  sides 
surrounded  by  him,  have  come  from  him,  form  part  of 
him,  am  his  child ;  everything  which  seems  bad  seems  so 
only  because  I  believe  myself,  and  not  him,  and  out  of 
this  life,  in  which  it  is  so  easy  to  do  his  will,  because  this 
will  is  at  the  same  time  my  will,  I  cannot  fall  anywhere 
except  into  him,  and  in  him  there  is  full  joy  and  good- 
ness. 

Everything  I  may  write  now  will  not  express  what  I 
felt.  If  I  have  some  physical  or  moral  pain,  —  a  son  dies, 
that  which  I  love  perishes,  —  and  I  myself  can  do  noth- 
ing, and  sufferings  await  me,  —  I  suddenly  think.  And 
God  ?    and    everything    becomes   good    and    happy    and 

C163.r.    .    •    • 

There  is  not  one  believer  who  is  not  assailed  by 
moments  of  doubt,  of  doubt  in  the  existence  of  God. 
These  doubts  are  not  harmful :  on  the  contrary,  they  lead 
to  the  highest  comprehension  of  God. 

That  God  whom  I  knew  became  familiar  to  me,  and  I 
no  longer  believed  in  him.  A  man  believes  fully  in  God 
only  when  he  is  revealed  anew  to  him,  and  he  is  revealed 
to  man  from  a  new  side,  when  he  is  sought  with  a  man's 
whole  soul. 

I  have  thought  much  about  God,  about  the  essence  of 
my  life,  and,  it  seemed,  I  doubted  both  and  verified  my 
deductions  ;  and  then,  lately,  I  simply  just  wanted  to  lean 
on  my  faith  in  God  and  in  the  indestructibleness  of  my 
soul,  and,  to  my  surprise,  I  experienced  such  a  firm,  calm 
confidence  as  I  had  never  experienced  before.  Thus 
all  the  doubts  and  verifications  apparently  not  only 
did  not  weaken,  but  even  enormously  strengthened 
faith. 


THOUGHTS    ON    GOD  419 

One  needs  never  go  on  purpose  to  God  :  "  I  will  just  go 
to  God,  I  will  live  in  godly  fashion.  I  have  lived  in 
devilish  fashion,  and  so  now  will  hve  in  a  godly  way,  — 
I  will  try,  maybe  it  is  no  misfortune."  It  is  a  misfor- 
tune, and  a  great  one  at  that.  To  God,  as  in  marrying, 
one  must  go  only  when  one  would  Hke  not  to  go,  and 
would  like  not  to  marry,  hut  cannot  help  oneself.  .  .  . 
And  so  I  will  not  say  to  everybody :  "  Go  purposely  into 
offences ; "  but  to  him  who  puts  the  question  like  this,* 
Shall  1  not  make  a  mistake  if  I  go  to  God,  instead  of 
going  to  the  devil?  1  will  shout  with  might  and  main, 
"  Go,  go  to  the  devil,  by  all  means  to  the  devil."  It  is 
a  hundred  times  better  to  burn  oneself  on  the  devil  than 
to  stand  on  the  crossway  or  hypocritically  to  go  to  God. 

I  have  read  Spencer's  answer  to  Balfour :  it  is  the  con- 
fession of  agnosticism,  as  they  now  call  atheism. 

I  say  agnosticism,  though  it  wants  to  be  something 
different  from  atheism  in  that  it  advances  a  certain  impos- 
sibihty  of  knowledge;  but  in  reality  it  is  the  same  as 
atheism,  because  the  root  of  everything  is  the  non-recog- 
nition of  God, 

So  I  read  Spencer,  who  says :  "  It  is  not  that  I  wish  to 
reject  the  faith  in  God,  but  that  I  must :  self-deception  is 
the  alternative.  There  is  no  pleasure,"  he  says,  "  in  the 
consciousness  of  being  a  small  bubble  on  a  globe  that  is 
in  itself  infinitesimal  compared  with  the  totality  of  things." 
(I  should  hke  to  ask  him  what  he  means  by  totality  of 
things.)  "  Those  on  whom  the  unpitying  rush  of  changes 
inflicts  sufferings  which  are  often  without  remedy  find  no 
consolation  in  the  thought  that  they  are  at  the  mercy  of 
bhnd  forces  which  cause,  indifferently,  now  the  destruction 
of  a  sun  and  now  the  death  of  an  animalcule.  Contem- 
plation of  a  universe  which  is  without  conceivable  begin- 
ning or  end,  and  without  intelligible  purpose,  yields  no 
satisfaction.     The  desire  to  know  what  it  aU  means  is 


420  THOUGHTS    ON    GOD 

no  less  stroug  in  the  agnostic  than  in  others,  and  raises 
sympathy  with  them.  Faihug  utterly  to  find  any  inter- 
pretation himself,  he  feels  a  regretful  inability  to  accept 
the  interpretation  they  offer." 

Precisely  the  same  thing  N told  me  the  other  day : 

"  There  takes  place  a  kind  of  circular  motion,  and  amidst 
this  motion,  endless  in  time  and  space,  I  appear,  and 
live,  and  disappear,  —  so  much  is  certain.  But  everything 
■  else,  that  is,  the  conception  of  a  rational  being  from  whom 
I  came,  and  for  the  attainment  of  whose  purpose  I  exist, 
together  with  everything  which  exists,  —  such  a  concep- 
tion is  self-deception." 

These  two  variant  and  opposite  world  conceptions  must 
be  represented  as  follows  : 

Some,  the  agnostics,  say :  "  I  see  myself,  a  being  born  of 
my  parents,  such  as  all  the  living  beings  which  surround 
me  and  which  live  in  certain  conditions  that  are  subject 
to  my  investigation  and  study,  and  I  study  myself  and 
the  other  beings,  both  the  animate  and  the  inanimate, 
and  those  conditions  in  which  they  live ;  and  I  arrange 
my  life  in  conformity  ^vith  this  study.  Questions  of 
origLQ  I  investigate  in  the  same  manner,  and  by  observa- 
tion and  experience  attain  greater  and  greater  knowledge. 
But  the  question  as  to  whence  all  this  world  came,  why  it 
exists,  and  I  in  it,  I  leave  unanswered,  as  I  see  no  possi- 
bility of  answering  it  as  definitely,  clearly,  and  convinc- 
ingly as  I  answer  the  questions  in  regard  to  everything 
which  exists  in  the  universe.  And  so  I  do  not  recognize 
the  auswer  to  this  question,  which  is,  that  there  exists  a 
rational  being,  God,  from  whom  I  originate  "  (Generally 
they  say  "  from  whom  the  universe  has  its  beginning," 
meaning  by  this  origin  the  creation  of  the  universe,  which 
the  Christian  teaching  does  not  assert),  "and  who  has 
determined  the  law  of  my  life  for  certain  purposes  of  his 
own,  —  this  auswer  to  the  question  I  do  not  recognize, 
since  it  has  not  that  clearness  and  conclusiveness  which 


THOUGHTS    ON   GOD  421 

the  scientific  answers  have  in  respect  to  questions  of 
causes  and  conditions  of  various  vital  phenomena."  Thus 
speaks  the  agnostic,  and,  by  not  admitting  the  possibility 
of  any  other  knowledge  than  the  one  which  is  obtained 
by  means  of  observation  and  of  reflection  on  these  obser- 
vations, he  is,  though  not  right,  at  least  logically  quite 
consistent. 

But  a  Christian,  a  man  who  recognizes  God,  says :  "  I 
recognize  myself  as  living  only  because  I  recognize  myself 
as  a  rational  being ;  since  I  recognize  myself  as  rational,  I 
cannot  help  but  acknowledge  that  my  life  and  that  of 
everything  in  existence  must  be  just  as  rational  In  order 
to  be  rational,  it  must  have  a  purpose.  Now,  the  purpose 
of  this  life  must  be  outside  me,  in  that  being  for  whom  I 
and  everything  in  existence  serve  as  a  tool  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  his  purpose.  This  being  exists,  and  I  must 
in  life  fulfil  his  law  (will).  But  the  questions  as  to  what 
this  being  is  that  demands  of  me  the  fulfilment  of  its  law, 
and  when  this  rational  life  in  me  had  its  beginning,  and 
how  it  originates  in  other  beings  in  time  and  space,  that 
is,  what  God  is,  whether  personal  or  impersonal,  how  he 
created,  and  whether  he  created  the  world,  and  when  the 
soul  arose  in  me,  and  at  what  age,  and  how  it  originates 
in  others,  and  whence  it  comes  and  whither  it  goes,  and  in 
what  part  of  the  body  it  hves,  —  all  these  questions  I 
must  leave  unanswered  because  I  know  in  advance  that  in 
the  sphere  of  obsers^ation  and  reasoning  concerning  them 
I  shall  never  arrive  at  a  final  answer,  since  everything  will 
be  concealed  in  time  and  space.  For  this  reason  I  do  not 
admit  the  answers  given  by  science  as  to  how  the  world, 
the  suns,  the  earth  began,  how  the  soul  begins,  and  in 
what  part  of  the  cerebral  brain  it  is  to  be  found." 

In  the  first  case,  the  agnostic,  by  acknowledging  him- 
self to  be  only  an  animal  being,  and  so  recognizing  only 
this,  that  he  is  subject  to  external  sensations,  does  not 
recognize  the  spiritual  principle  and  is  reconciled  to  the 


422  THOUGHTS    ON   GOD 

stupidity  of  his  existence,  which  violates  the  demands  of 
reason.  In  the  second  case,  the  Christian,  by  recognizino' 
himself  only  as  a  rational  being,  and  so  recognizing  only 
that  which  corresponds  to  the  demands  of  reason,  does  not 
acknowledge  the  actuality  of  the  data  of  external  experi- 
mentation, and  so  regards  these  data  as  fantastical  and 
erroneous. 

Both  are  equally  right.  But  the  difference,  the  ma- 
terial difference,  between  them  is  this,  that  according 
to  the  th'st  world  conception  everything  in  the  world  is 
strictly  scientific,  logical,  and  rational,  with  the  exception 
of  the  life  of  man  himself  and  of  the  whole  universe, 
which  has  no  meaning ;  and  so,  m  spite  of  all  attempts 
to  the  contrary,  there  result  from  such  a  world  conception 
many  interesting  and  amusing  reflections,  but  nothing 
needful  for  guidance  in  life  ;  while  according  to  the  second 
world  conception  the  life  of  man  and  of  the  whole  uni- 
verse receives  a  definite  and  rational  meaning,  and  a  very 
direct,  simple,  and  accessible  application  to  life,  whereby 
the  possibility  of  scientific  investigations  is  not  excluded, 
except  that  these  investigations  occupy  their  appropriate 
place. 

Nothing  proves  better  the  existence  of  God  than  the 
attempts  of  the  evolutionists  at  recognizing  morality  and 
deducing  it  from  the  struggle. 

It  is  evident  that  it  cannot  result  from  struggle ;  and 
yet  they  feel  that  they  cannot  get  along  without  it,  and  so 
try  to  deduce  it  from  their  propositions,  although  to  de- 
duce it  from  the  theory  of  evolution  is  as  strange  or  even 
stranger  and  more  illogical  than  to  deduce  it  from  the 
precepts  given  ])y  the  Jewish  God  on  Sinai.  Their  error, 
which  consists  in  this,  that  they  deny  the  consciousness 
of  their  spiritual  ego  as  tlie  production  of  God,  of  a  parti- 
cle of  him,  without  whom  there  can  be  no  rational  world 
conception,  compels  them  to  admit  the  unjustified  and 


THOUGHTS    ON   GOD  423 

even  contradictory  mystery,  that  is,  in  respect  to  morality, 
of  that  very  God  whom  they  have  excluded  from  their 
world  conception. 

The  other  day  a  Frenchman  asked  me  whether  moral- 
ity would  not  be  sufficiently  well  based  on  goodness  and 
beauty,  that  is,  again  on  God,  whom  they,  by  dint  of  the 
spiritual  disease  which  assails  them,  are  afraid  to  name. 

They  say  :  "  God  must  be  understood  as  a  personality." 
There  is  here  a  great  misconception :  personality  is 
limitation.  Man  feels  himself  as  a  personality,  only  be- 
cause he  is  in  contact  with  other  personalities.  If  man 
were  alone,  he  would  not  be  a  personality.  The  two 
conceptions,  the  outer  world,  —  other  beings,  —  and  per- 
sonality, define  one  another.  If  there  did  not  exist  a 
world  of  other  beings,  man  would  not  feel  himself  (would 
not  be  conscious  of)  as  a  personality,  —  he  would  not 
recognize  the  existence  of  other  beings.  Thus  man  in  the 
world  cannot  be  thought  of  otherwise  than  as  a  personality. 
But  how  can  we  say  of  God  that  he  is  a  personality,  that 
God  is  personal?  In  this  lies  the  root  of  anthropomor- 
phism. Of  God  we  can  say  only  what  Moses  and  Moham- 
med said,  —  that  he  is  one ;  not  one  in  the  sense  that 
there  is  no  other  God,  —  in  relation  to  God  there  cannot 
be  the  concept  of  number,  and  so  we  cannot  say  that  he  is 
one  (one  in  the  sense  of  a  number),  —  but  in  this  sense, 
that  he  is  unicentric,  that  he  is  not  a  concept,  but  a  being, 
—  what  the  Orthodox  caU  a  living  God,  in  contradistinc- 
tion to  the  pantheistic  God,  that  is,  a  higher  spiritual 
being  which  lives  in  everything.  He  is  one  in  this  sense, 
that,  as  a  being,  he  exists,  and  may  be  turned  to,  that 
is,  not  exactly  by  praying,  —  which  is  a  relation  between 
me,  a  limited  being,  a  personality,  and  incomprehensible, 
but  existing  God.  The  chief  incomprehensibility  of  God 
consists  even  in  this,  that  we  know  him  as  one  being,  — 
we  cannot  know  him    otherwise,  —  and    yet  we  cannot 


424  TnouGHTs  on  god 

understand  one  being  as  filling  everything.  If  God  is 
not  one,  he  melts  away,  he  does  not  exist.  If  he  is  one, 
we  involuntarily  imagine  him  in  the  form  of  personality, 
and  then  he  is  no  longer  a  higher  being,  no  longer  every- 
thing. And  yet,  in  order  that  we  may  know  God  and 
lean  on  him,  we  must  understand  him  as  filling  all  and  at 
the  same  time  as  one. 

The  world  is  such  as  we  see  it,  only  if  there  do  not 
exist  any  other  beings,  besides  ourselves,  who  are  differ- 
ently organized  and  endowed  by  different  sensations.  But 
if  we  see,  not  only  the  possibility,  but  also  the  necessity, 
of  the  existence  of  other  beings,  who  are  endowed  with 
other  sensations  than  are  ours,  then  the  world  is  in  no 
case  only  such  as  we  see  it. 

Our  conception  of  the  world  shows  only  our  relation  to 
the  world,  just  as  a  visual  picture,  which  we  form  for  our- 
selves because  we  see  as  far  as  the  horizon,  in  no  way 
represents  the  actual  definition  of  visible  objects.  The 
other  sensations,  those  of  hearing,  smell,  and  chiefly 
touch,  by  verifying  our  visual  impressions,  give  us  a  more 
definite  conception  of  the  visible  objects  ;  but  the  fact  that 
we  know  the  visible  objects  as  broad,  thick,  hard,  or  soft, 
and  how  they  sound  and  smell,  does  not  prove  that  we 
know  these  objects  well,  and  that  a  new  sense  (in  addition 
to  the  five),  if  it  were  given  to  us,  would  not  reveal  to  us 
that  our  conception  of  things,  as  formed  by  the  five  senses, 
is  as  deceptive  as  that  conception  of  flatness  and  dimi- 
nution of  objects  in  the  perspective,  which  vision  alone 
gave  us. 

I  see  a  man  in  the  mirror,  hear  his  voice,  and  am  fully 
convinced  that  this  is  a  real  man ;  but  I  come  nearer, 
want  to  take  liis  hand,  and  touch  the  glass  of  the  mirror, 
and  see  my  deception.  The  same  must  take  place  with 
a  dying  man  :  a  new  feeling  is  born,  which  reveals  to  him 
(both  through  the  new  feeling  and  the  new  knowledge 


TIIOUGUTS    ON    GOD  425 

given  to  him)  the  deception  of  the  consciousness  of  his 
body  and  of  all  that  whicli  ])y  means  of  the  senses  of  this 
body  was  recognized  by  him  as  existing. 

Thus  the  world  is  certainly  not  such  as  we  know  it : 
there  will  be  other  instruments  of  perception,  and  there 
will  be  another  world.  But  no  matter  how  that  which 
we  call  the  world  —  our  relation  to  the  world  —  may 
change,  one  thing  is  indubitably  such  as  we  perceive  it, 
and  always  unchangeable,  —  it  is  that  which  perceives. 
And  it  perceives  not  only  in  me,  but  in  everything  which 
perceives.  This  perceiving  one  is  everywhere  and  in 
everything  and  in  itself.  It  is  God  and  that  for  some  rea- 
son limited  particle  of  God,  which  forms  our  actual  ego. 

But  what  is  this  God,  that  is,  the  eternal,  infinite,  all- 
powerful,  which  has  become  mortal,  limited,  feeble  ? 
Why  has  God  divided  in  himself  ?  I  do  not  know,  but 
I  know  that  it  is,  that  in  this  is  life.  Everything  which 
we  know  is  nothing  but  just  such  a  division  of  God. 
Everything  which  we  cognize  as  the  world  is  the  cognition 
of  these  divisions.  Our  cognition  of  the  world  (what  we 
call  matter  in  space  and  time)  is  a  contiguity  of  the  limits 
of  our  divinity  with  its  other  divisions.  Birth  and  death 
are  transitions  from  one  division  into  another. 

The  severest  and  most  consistent  agnostic  recognizes 
God,  whether  he  wants  to  or  not.  He  cannot  help  but 
recognize  that,  in  the  first  place,  in  his  own  existence  and 
in  that  of  the  whole  world,  there  is  a  certain  meaning 
which  is  inaccessible  to  him ;  in  the  second  place,  that 
there  is  a  law  of  his  life,  —  a  law  to  which  he  can  sub- 
mit, or  from  which  he  can  depart.  Now,  this  very 
acknowledgment  of  a  higher  meaning  of  hfe,  which  is 
inaccessible  to  man,  but  inevitably  exists,  and  of  the 
law  of  his  life,  is  God  and  his  will. 

Such  a  recognition  of  God  is  much  firmer  than  the 
recognition  of  God  as  creator.  Trinity,  redeemer,  provider, 


426  THOUGHTS    ON   GOD 

and  so  forth.  To  believe  in  this  manner  is  like  digging  a 
foundation  down  to  the  rock,  to  the  bottom  rock,  and  then 
building  a  house  on  it. 

Men  know  two  Gods :  one,  whom  they  wish  to  make 
subservient  to  themselves,  by  demanding  of  him  through 
prayers  the  execution  of  their  wishes,  and  another,  such 
as  we  ought  to  serve,  to  the  fulfilment  of  whose  will  all 
our  wishes  must  be  directed. 

Everything  I  know  I  know,  because  there  is  a  God, 
and  I  know  him.  On  tliis  alone  can  we  rear  a  firm  foun- 
dation, in  relation  to  men  and  to  ourselves,  and  to  the 
extra-terrestrial  and  extra-temporal  life.  I  not  only  fail  to 
find  this  mystical,  but,  on  the  contrary,  find  that  the 
opposite  view  is  mysticism,  while  this  is  a  most  intelligi- 
ble and  accessible  reality. 

Nature,  they  say,  is  economical  with  its  forces :  with 
the  least  effort  it  obtains  the  greatest  results.  Even  so 
is  God.  In  order  to  establish  in  the  world  the  kingdom  of 
God,  unity,  and  the  service  of  one  another,  and  to  destroy 
enmity,  God  does  not  need  to  do  so  himself.  He  has 
imparted  to  man  his  reason,  which  frees  love  in  man,  and 
everything  he  wishes  will  be  done  by  man.  God  does  his 
work  through  us.  There  is  not  time  for  God,  or  it  is 
infinite.  Having  implanted  rational  love  in  man,  he  has 
done  everything. 

Why  did  he  do  so,  through  man,  and  not  in  himself  ? 
A  foohsh  question,  such  as  would  never  have  occurred  to 
us,  if  we  were  not  all  spoiled  by  the  insipid  superstitions 
of  the  creation  of  the  world  by  God. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  something  is  being  done  in  this 
world,  and  that  it  is  done  by  all  living  beings,  and  by  me, 
by  my  life.     Otherwise,  why  should  there  be  this  sun, 


THOUGHTS    ON    GOD  427 

these  springs  and  winters,  and,  above  all,  this  three-year- 
old  girl,  wanton  from  a  superabundance  of  life,  and  this 
doting  old  woman,  and  this  madman.  These  separate 
beings,  who  evidently  have  no  meaniug  for  me,  and  yet 
live  so  energetically  and  preserve  their  life  so  well,  in 
whom  life  is  screwed  in  so  firmly,  —  these  beings  convince 
me  more  than  anything  that  they  are  needed  for  some 
rational,  good  work,  which  is  not  comprehensible  to  me. 

Once,  while  praying  to  God,  it  became  clear  to  me  that 
God  was  indeed  a  real  being,  love,  —  that  he  was  all  that 
which  I  embrace  with  a  small  edge  and  feel  in  the  form 
of  love.  And  it  is  not  a  sensation,  an  abstraction,  but  a 
real  being  :  I  felt  him. 


^& 


To  love  means  to  wish  what  a  beloved  object  wishes. 
The  objects  of  love  wish  the  love  of  the  other  side,  and  so 
we  can  love  what  wishes  one  and  the  same.  God  wishes 
one  and  the  same. 

The  love  of  God  means  to  love  what  God  wishes ;  but 
he  wishes  well  to  everything. 

"  Brothers,  let  us  love  one  another !  He  who  loves  is 
born  of  God  and  knows  God,  because  (it  says,  God  is  love, 
but  we  ought  to  say)  love  is  God."  However,  God  is  also 
love,  that  is,  we  know  God  only  in  the  form  of  love, 
and  love  is  God,  that  is,  if  we  love,  we  are  not  gods,  but 
God. 

Yes,  love  is  God.  Love,  love  him  who  has  done  you 
harm,  whom  you  have  condemned,  and  have  not  loved, 
and  everything  which  concealed  his  soul  from  you  will 
disappear,  and  you  will  see,  as  through  clear  water,  the 
.  divine  essence  of  his  love  at  the  bottom,  and  you  will  not 
have  to  forgive  him,  and  will  not  be  able  to  do  so :  you 
will  have  only  to  forgive  yourself  for  not  having  loved 


V 


428  THOUGHTS  on  god 

God  in  him  in  whom  he  was,  and  for  not  having  seen  him 
in  your  wanting  love. 

Love  is  the  manifestation  (consciousness)  of  God  in  one- 
self, and  so  the  striving  to  get  out  of  oneself,  be  freed, 
live  a  divine  life.  This  striving  evokes  God,  that  is,  love 
to  others. 

My  chief  thought  is  that  love  evokes  love  in  others ; 
God,  awakened  in  you,  causes  an  awakening  of  the  same 
God  in  others. 

I  went  on  horseback  from  Tula,  and  thought  about  my 
being  a  part  of  him,  which  in  a  certain  way  is  separated 
from  the  other  parts.  He  is  all,  the  Father.  And  I  felt 
love  for  him.  Now,  especially  now,  I  am  unable  to  repro- 
duce, and  even  recall,  that  feeling.  I  felt  so  happy  tbat 
I  said  to  myself :  I  thought  that  I  should  not  find  out 
anything  new^,  and  now  I  have  learned  a  remarkable, 
blissful,  new"  sensation,  yes,  a  sensation. 

Lying  in  bed  to-day,  I  thought  of  love  to  God  ...  (I 
wanted  to  say  love  of  God,  that  is,  divine  love)  —  that 
the  first  and  chief  commandment  is  divine  love,  and  the 
second,  similar  to  it,  and  resulting  from  it,  —  yes,  result- 
ing from  it,  —  is  love  of  our  neighbour. 

The  desire  of  good  is  not  God,  but  only  one  of 
his  manifestations,  —  one  of  the  sides  from  which  we 
see  God.  God  manifests  himself  in  me  as  a  desire  for 
good. 

God,  who  is  contained  in  man,  at  first  strives  to  free 
himself,  in  order  to  widen  and  increase  the  being  in  whom 
he  is ;  then,  noticing  the  unforeseen  limits  of  this  being, 
he  strives  to  free  himself,  in  order  that  he  may  go  out 
of  this  being  and  embrace  other  beings. 


THOUGHTS    ON    GOD  429 

A  rational  being  is  not  contained  in  the  life  of  a  per- 
sonality, and  since  it  is  rational,  it  strives  to  come  out 
of  it. 

The  Christian  teaching  reveals  to  man  that  the  essence 
of  his  hfe  is  not  his  separate  being,  but  God,  who  is  con- 
tained in  this  being.  But  this  God  is  cognized  by  man  as 
reason  and  love. 

The  desire  for  good  for  oneself,  love  of  oneself,  could 
have  existed  in  man  only  so  long  as  reason  did  not  wake 
up  in  him.  The  moment  reason  woke  in  him,  it  became 
clear  to  man  that  the  desire  for  good  for  himself,  a  separate 
being,  is  vain,  because  the  good  is  not  reahzable  for  a 
separate  and  mortal  being.  As  soon  as  reason  appeared, 
only  one  desire  for  good  became  possible,  —  the  desire 
for  good  for  everything,  because  with  the  desire  for  good 
for  everything  there  is  no  struggle,  but  union ;  not  death, 
but  transmission  of  life. 

God  is  not  love,  but  in  the  living  irrational  beings  he 
manifests  himself  as  love  for  themselves,  in  the  living 
rational  beings  as  love  for  everything  existing. 

Why  are  you  so  dispirited  ?  You  are  expecting  some- 
thing great.  You  are  waiting,  it  seems  to  me,  for  God 
in  thunders  and  in  storm,  and  not  in  stillness.  The  best 
is  that  there  is  "  no  place  in  which  to  give,"  as  you  say. 
In  this  the  hand  of  God  is  most  visible  and  perceptible. 

You  say  that  it  looks  as  though  I  did  not  acknowledge 
God.  There  is  some  misunderstanding  here.  I  acknowd- 
edge  nothing  but  God. 

I  think  I  have  written  to  you  and  told  you  my  defini- 
tion of  God,  which  I  would  now  give  as  an  answer  to  the 
question  as  to  what  God  is.  God  is  all  that  infinite 
something  of  which  I  am  conscious  of  being  a  part.  And 
'  so  everything  in  me  borders  on  God,  and  I  feel  him  in 
everything.  This  is  not  an  empty  phrase,  but  that  by 
which  I  live. 


430  THOUGHTS   ON   GOD 

I  agree  with  you,  no,  I  think  like  you  in  what  you  say 
about  the  comprehension  and  about  God.  I  do  not  say  I 
agree,  because,  speaking  of  these  subjects,  it  is  hard  to 
express  them  precisely,  and  words  may  say  too  much  or 
too  little,  and  so  it  is  impossible  ever  to  recognize  a  given 
formulation  as  completely  corresponding  to  one's  compre- 
hension. All  I  feel  is  that  we  think  and  feel  in  the  same 
direction,  and  this  gives  me  much  pleasure.  It  is  impos- 
sible not  to  think  of  these  subjects,  but  each  involuntarily 
thinks  in  his  own  way ;  it  is  not  only  useless,  but  it 
may  be  dangerous,  to  formulate  them  in  such  a  way  as 
they  did  in  the  symbols  of  faith.  "What  we  can  and 
must  formulate  are  the  conclusions,  as  apphed  to  life, 
as  Moses  did,  Thou  shalt  not  kill,  and  Christ,  Eesist  not 
evil.  But  I  repeat  that  I  think  in  the  same  direction 
and  fully  agree  with  you  that  the  measure  of  the  com- 
prehension is  given  according  to  purity,  humiUty,  and 
love. 

We  shall  try  to  say  what  we  know,  what  is  necessary, 
joyful,  and  indubitable  to  us,  and  God  (the  same  that  you 
think  we  ought  to  obviate)  will  help  us.  In  naming  him,  I 
acknowledge  my  insufficiency,  and  try  —  I  his  weak,  par- 
tial vessel  —  to  disclose  myself,  that  part  of  myself  which 
receives  him,  in  order  that  he  may  enter  me,  so  far  as 
I  can  receive  him  and  am  worthy  to.  But  the  chief  thing 
is,  I  need  him  in  order  that  I  may  express  whither  I  am 
going,  and  to  whom  I  am  going.  In  this  uniform  earthly 
life  I  may  not  feel  him  and  get  along  without  this  form 
of  thought  and  expression,  but  in  passing  over  from  the 
former  life  into  this,  and  from  this  into  another,  I  cannot 
help  but  call  that  whence  I  come  and  whither  I  go  God, 
because  this  is  the  manner  of  expression  which  is  nearest 
to  the  real  meaning  of  the  matter :  from  God  to  God,  — 
from  the  extra-temporal  and  extra-spatial  into  the 
same. 


I 


TUOUGHTS    ON    GOD  431 

What  am  I  here,  who  am  cast  amidst  this  world  ?  To 
whom  shall  I  turn?  From  whom  shall  I  expect  an 
answer  ? 

From  men?  They  do  not  know;  they  laugh  and  do 
not  wish  to  know,  saying :  "  These  are  trifles.  Do  not 
think  of  them.  Here  is  the  world  with  its  joys, — 
Hve ! " 

But  they  will  not  deceive  me.  I  know  that  they  do  not 
believe  in  what  they  say.  They  are  tormented  like  my- 
self, and  suffer  terror  before  death,  before  themselves,  and 
before  thee,  0  Lord,  whom  they  will  not  name. 

And  I,  too,  did  not  name  thee  for  a  long  time,  and  for 
a  long  time  did  the  same  as  they  do.  I  know  this  de- 
ception, and  how  it  oppresses  the  heart,  and  how  terrible 
the  fire  of  despair  is,  which  is  concealed  in  the  heart  of 
him  who  does  not  name  thee.  No  matter  how  much 
you  may  flood  him,  he  will  burn  your  inside,  even  as  he 
burned  me. 

But,  O  Lord,  I  have  named  thee,  and  my  suffering  has 
come  to  an  end.     My  despair  has  passed. 

I  curse  my  weaknesses,  I  seek  thy  way  ;  but  I  do  not 
despair,  —  I  feel  thy  nearness,  thy  aid,  when  I  walk  thy 
ways,  and  forgiveness,  when  I  depart  from  them. 

Thy  way  is  clear  and  simple.  Thy  yoke  is  good  and 
thy  burden  light,  but  I  wandered  for  a  long  time  off  thy 
ways :  in  the  abomination  of  my  youth  I,  in  my  pride, 
threw  off  every  burden,  unhitched  myself  from  every 
yoke,  and  taught  myself  not  to  walk  in  thy  ways.  Thy 
yoke  and  thy  burden  are  hard  for  me,  though  I  know  that 
they  are  good  and  light. 

0  Lord,  forgive  me  the  errors  of  my  youth  and  help 
me  to  bear  thy  yoke  as  joyfully  as  I  receive  it. 

Awhile  ago,  as  I  was  left  alone  after  my  occupations, 
I  asked  myself  what  I  should  do,  and  I  had  no  personal 
wish  (except  the  bodily  needs,  which  rise  only  when  I 


432  THOUGHTS    ON    GOD 

want  to  eat  or  drink) ;  I  felt  so  clearly  the  joy  of  the 
consciousness  of  God's  will  that  I  needed  nothing  and 
wanted  nothing  except  to  do  what  he  wishes. 

This  feeling  arose  in  consequence  of  the  question  which 
I  proposed  to  myself  when  I  was  left  alone  in  the  still- 
ness :  Who  am  I  ?  Why  am  I  ?  And  so  clearly  the 
answer  came  of  itself :  Whoever  and  whatever  I  may  be, 
I  am  sent  by  some  one  to  do  something.  Well,  let  me  do 
that.  And  it  gave  me  such  joy  and  pleasure  to  feel  my 
uniting  with  God's  will. 

This  is  my  second  living  feeling  of  God.  Before  I  just 
felt  love  for  God.  Now  I  cannot  recall  how  it  was ;  all 
I  remember  is  that  it  was  a  joyous  sensation. 

Oh,  what  happiness  solitude  is !  To-day  I  am  so  happy 
to  feel  God. 


ON    THE    MEANING    OF    LIFE 

From  Tolstoy's  diaries,  private  letters,  memoran- 
dum-books, drafts  of  unfinished  writings,  and 
similar  unpublished  papers 

1885 -1900 


ON    THE    MEANING    OF    LIFE 


It  will  give  me  pleasure  to  try  to  answer  your  ques- 
tion, for  I  see  that  it  is  put  with  full  sincerity.  The 
question  is  of  prime  importance  and  yet  such  as  the 
majority  of  men  do  not  put  to  themselves,  assuming  that 
there  is  no  answer  to  it,  or  that  it  was  given  long  ago,  or 
that  it  is  impossible;  but  it  is  a  simple  and  necessary 
question,  without  which,  it  seems,  it  is  impossible  to  live. 
You  ask :  What  is  the  aim  of  human  life  ?  WTiy  does 
man  live,  or,  ia  different  words,  why  do  I  live  ? 

You  are  right  when  you  say  that  it  is  only  religion  that 
answers  this  question.  Eeligion,  true  religion,  is  nothing 
but  an  answer  to  this  question ;  and  the  religion  which  I 
profess,  the  Christian  teaching  in  its  true  sense,  gives  to 
this  question  an  answer  which  is  as  simple  and  as  clear 
as  the  question  itself,  if  in  the  place  of  the  word  aim  we 
put  the  word  meaning. 

The  aim,  the  finite  aim  of  human  life  in  the  world, 
which  is  infinite  in  space  and  time,  is  obviously  not  acces- 
sible to  man  in  his  limitation ;  but  the  meaning  of  hu- 
man hfe,  that  is,  why  he  lives  and  what  he  ought  to  do, 
must  by  all  means  be  comprehensible  to  man,  just  as 
comprehensible  as  is  to  a  workman  his  duty  in  a  large 
factory. 

The  meaning  of  human  life,  as  intelligible  to  man,  con- 
sists in  establishing  the  kingdom  of  God  upon  earth,  that 
is,  in  cooperating  with  the  substitution  for  the  selfish, 

435 


436  ON    THE    MEANING    OF    LIFE 

hateful,  aggressive,  irrational  structure  of  life  of  another, 
which  is  amicable,  fraternal,  free,  and  rational. 

The  means  for  attaining  this,  that  is,  the  answer  to  the 
question  as  to  what  a  man  must  do,  consists  in  what, 
according  to  the  Gospel,  forms  the  whole  law  and  the 
prophets :  to  act  toward  others,  as  thou  wouldst  that  they 
should  act  toward  thee. 

The  answer,  as  you  see,  is  very  simple,  but  seems  very 
obscure  to  us,  because  our  animal  nature,  and  our  educa- 
tion, and  the  false  religious  teaching,  accustom  us  to  the 
belief  that  the  meaning  of  life  does  not  consist  in  serving 
God  and  our  neighbour,  but  lies  in  our  personal  happiness. 
Having  become  accustomed  to  live  for  ourselves  and  our 
personal  happiness  alone,  it  seems  hard  to  us  to  transfer 
the  aim  of  our  hfe  to  the  service  of  God.  But,  no  matter 
how  hard  it  is,  it  is  possible,  and  the  more  we  accustom 
ourselves  to  it,  the  more  natural  it  becomes,  the  more  so 
since,  by  executing  God's  will,  we  by  that  very  act  attain 
the  highest  personal  good,  which  before  we  regarded  as 
the  aim  of  our  life,  as  it  says  in  the  Gospel,  Seek  the 
kingdom  of  God  and  his  righteousness,  and  the  rest  shall 
be  added  unto  you.  Living  a  personal  hfe,  we  seek  the 
rest  only,  that  is,  the  personal  happiness,  and  we  do  not 
attain  it,  and  do  not  contribute  to  the  establishment  of  the 
kingdom  of  God,  but,  on  the  contrary,  work  against  it. 
But  seeking  the  kingdom  of  God  and  his  righteousness,  we 
receive  the  rest,  that  is,  happiness,  if  only  by  happiness 
we  understand,  not  some  external  benefits  for  which  we 
hanker,  but  spiritual  ones,  —  peace,  freedom,  and  joy. 

I  write  to  you,  not  what  I  have  arrived  at  tlirough  rea- 
soning, but  what  I  have  attained  through  experience :  it 
is  possible  to  live  for  the  execution  of  God's  will.  If  a 
man  cannot  live  so  at  all  times,  he  can  do  so  in  some  of 
his  best  moments.  If  he  shall  find  in  it  the  meaning 
of  life,  he  will  live  so  ever  more  frequently.  And  the 
oftener   he   will   hve    so,  the    more   he   will   experience 


ON    THE    MEANING    OP    LIFE  437 

the  reasonableness  and  joy  of  such  a  life  and  will  be  nat- 
urally drawn  toward  such  a  hfe. 

The  aim  of  life  ?  There  is  no  such  aim,  and  there  can- 
not be,  and  no  knowledge  can  discover  it.  The  law  of 
direction,  the  path  of  hfe  ?  Yes.  To  this,  religion  — 
wisdom,  if  you  wish  —  gives  an  answer.  Its  answer  con- 
sists in  this,  that  it  shows  the  falseness  of  all  those  paths 
which  do  not  coincide  with  the  one  true  way.  Ijy  the 
rejection  of  the  false  directions  it  indicates  and  illumi- 
nates the  one  true  direction.  On  this  path  a  few  Uttle 
things  can  be  seen.  There  are  nearer  aims  which  science 
points  out,  but  it  can  in  no  way  indicate  the  path. 

In  my  weakness,  in  my  incomplete  subjection  of  my 
whole  life  to  reason,  I  have  put  this  question  to  myself, 
and  have  tried  to  answer  it.  If  I  were  completely  welded 
with  the  life  of  reason  and  lived  in  harmony  with  the 
law  of  the  world,  I  should  not  think  of  it.  But,  without 
ascribing  any  importance  to  them,  I  must  say  that  these 
are  dreams  that  iu\'oluntarily  pass  through  my  head. 

This  is  what  has  presented  itself  to  me :  the  law  of 
organic  life  is  a  struggle  ;  the  law  of  the  rational,  conscious 
life  is  union,  love.  On  the  organic  Hfe,  the  life  of  struggle, 
the  rational  hfe  is  born,  and  is  connected  with  it.  The 
aim  is  obvious:  to  destroy  the  struggle  and  introduce 
union  where  there  was  dissension :  at  first  among  men, 
then  between  men  and  animals,  and  then  between  animals 
and  plants. 

Such  an  aim  has  been  put  long  ago.  The  Hebrew 
Messiah  is  nothing  else  :  to  forge  spears  into  ploughshares, 
and  let  the  lamb  lie  with  the  lions. 

Now,  it  is  an  aim  like  this  that  flashes  through  my 
mind,  but  I  ascribe  no  importance  to  it :  I  know  that  it 
is  far  from  exhausting  everything.  What  is  dear  to  me  is 
only  the  correctness  of  the  direction  of  the  path.     The 


438  ON   THE   MEANING   OF   LIFE 

first  condition  for  the  correctness  of  the  path,  I  know,  is 
to  walk  on  it  with  all  my  being. 

The  support  and  multiplication  of  life  cannot  be  the 
aim  of  life,  —  so  much  is  certain.  But  here  there  turn 
up  two  different  points  of  view :  one  is  this,  that  the 
knowledge  in  man  —  science  in  humanity  —  guides  hfe, 
and  that,  therefore,  the  aim  of  life,  as  guided  by  knowl- 
edge, must  be  known  to  this  knowledge ;  and  the  other, 
that  man  is  a  tool  of  reason  for  the  accomplishment  of  the 
work  of  reason,  which  is  not  fully  known  to  man,  and 
that  the  aim  of  reason  cannot  be  known,  but  what  is 
known  to  man  is  only  the  path,  the  direction,  in  which 
reason  living  in  man  takes  him.  (Christ  has  said  all  this, 
and  I  never  stop  wondering  at  the  logicalness  and  precision 
of  his  philosophic  definitions.) 

Indeed,  can  there  be  an  aim  for  the  life  of  the  world  and 
for  the  hfe  of  men  (when  they  weld  their  life  with  the 
life  of  the  world  ?)  The  concept  of  aim  is  a  concept  of  the 
limitation  of  human  reason,  Hke  the  concept  of  reward 
and  punishment,  and  so  it  is  not  applicable  to  the  life 
of  the  world.  If  there  is  an  aim,  it  must  be  attained,  and 
then  there  is  an  end.  For  the  world  in  general  there  can 
only  be  life :  for  the  participants  in  the  hfe  of  the  world 
there  is  and  can  be  only  a  direction,  a  path. 

Besides :  with  the  first  point  of  view  it  is  assumed  that 
man's  whole  activity  consists,  or,  at  least,  is  guided  by 
knowledge,  and  that  for  the  attainment  of  the  aim  a  men- 
tal activity  is  needed  in  the  main  (some  think,  exclu- 
sively). With  the  second  point  of  view,  a  man,  who 
knows  the  direction  only,  walks  in  this  direction  with  all 
his  nerves,  and  muscles,  and  nails,  that  is,  he  completely 
submits  to  the  direction,  which  alone  he  knows,  and  with 
every  step  he  sees  new  sign-posts  on  the  road,  but  never 
the  aim,  which  he  can  never  see. 

And  only  under  this  condition  can  man  believe  implic- 


ON   THE    MEANING    OF    LIFE  439 

itly  in  the  direction  in  which  he  is  walking,  and  fulfil 
what  reason  demands  of  him.  Only  by  placing  himself 
under  conditions  of  a  support  and  a  multiplication  of  life, 
which  are  in  accord  with  reason,  and  only  by  having  from 
the  start  chosen  the  one  true  direction  of  the  path,  —  the 
path,  —  with  all  his  being,  can  he  with  absolute  certainty 
proceed  and  recognize  himself  in  accord  and  union  with 
reason ;  the  nearer  these  conditions  are,  the  safer ;  the 
farther,  the  more  they  are  doubtful. 

Not  to  see  the  promised  land  into  which  you  have  led 
others,  or,  at  least,  have  been  in  some  way  instrumental  in 
leading  others,  is  the  invariable  law  of  your  true  life. 
The  more  actual  the  work  of  the  true  life  is,  the  more 
remote  are  its  consequences,  and  the  consequences  of  a 
true  life  are  not  only  remote,  but  at  infinity,  and  so  you 
cannot  see  them.  You  see  farther  than  what  your  term 
of  life  is.  You  will  see  the  house  when  it  is  built,  and 
you  will  Hve  to  receive  the  rank  of  general ;  but  you  will 
not  live  to  see  the  liberation,  not  only  from  the  slavery  of 
state,  not  even  from  the  slavery  of  land  tenure. 

The  most  obvious  proof  that  life  is  not  in  the  attain- 
ment of  the  aim,  but  in  the  fulfilment  of  the  message. 

I  have  come  to  understand  with  a  special,  new  force 
that  my  hfe  and  that  of  all  is  only  a  ministration,  and  has 
not  purpose  in  itself. 

Every  life  is  meaningless,  except  the  one  which  has  for 
its  aim  the  service  of  God,  the  service  of  the  accomplish- 
ment of  the  work  of  God,  which  is  incomprehensible  to 
us. 

It  is  a  very  common  error  to  assume  the  aim  of  life  to 
be  in  serving  men,  and  not  in  serving  God.  Only  by 
serving  God,  that  is,  doing  what  he  wants  us  to  do,  can 


440  ON    THE    MEANING    OF    LIFE 

we  be  assured  that  we  are  not  doing  anything  worthless, 
and  it  is  not  impossible  to  choose  whom  to  serve. 

God  has  given  us  his  spirit,  love,  reason,  that  we  may 
serve  him ;  but  we  use  this  spirit  in  order  to  serve  our- 
selves :  we  use  the  axe  to  whittle  a  handle  with  it. 

The  meaning  of  our  life,  the  only,  rational,  and  joyful 
meaning,  consists  in  serving  and  feeling  ourselves  as  serv- 
ing the  work  of  God,  the  establishment  of  his  kingdom. 
At  times  it  happens  that  you  do  not  feel  this  service :  it 
seems  as  though  you  had  slipped  off  the  collar,  or  the 
traces  had  given  way;  but  at  times  it  only  seems  so, 
because  you  got  used  to  the  collar  and  to  the  work,  and  no 
longer  feel  it.  In  any  case,  even  if  you  do  not  externally 
feel  your  service,  as  long  as  you  know  in  the  depth  of  your 
soul  that  you  have  not  refused  to  serve  and  have  not 
slipped  off  your  collar,  you  may  be  sure  that  you  are 
serving:  apparently  you  are  having  down-hill  work,  or 
the  master  wants  to  give  you  a  breathing-spell. 

The  meaning  of  life  now  for  me  lies  exclusively  in  serv- 
ing God,  saving  man  from  sin  and  suffering. 

But  what  is  terrible  is  that  I  want  to  guess  the  road  on 
which  God  wants  to  do  it,  and  I  may  err  and  be  over- 
hasty,  and  so,  instead  of  cooperating,  may  interfere  and 
retard. 

There  is  one  means  for  avoiding  errors,  and  that  is,  not 
to  undertake  anything,  but  wait  for  God's  call,  —  which  is 
a  situation  when  a  man  cannot  help  acting  this  way  or 
that,  for  God,  or  against  him  ;  in  these  cases  all  the  forces 
are  to  be  strained  so  as  to  do  the  first. 

Man  uses  his  reason  for  asking.  What  for  ?  and  Why  ? 
applying  his  questions  to  his  own  life  and  to  that  of  the 
world ;  but  reason  shows  him  that  there  are  no  answers. 


ON    THE    MEANING   OF   LIFE  441 

With  these  questions  one  gets  something  like  nausea  and 
dizziness.  The  Hindoos  say  in  reply  to  the  question,  Why  ? 
"  Maya  enticed  Brahma,  who  existed  in  himself,  to  create 
the  world  ; "  but  to  the  question,  Wliat  for  ?  they  do  not 
even  invent  such  a  stupid  answer.  No  religion  has 
invented,  nor  any  human  mind  can  invent,  answers  to 
these  questions. 

What  does  this  mean  ?  Namely,  this,  that  human 
reason  is  not  given  for  the  purpose  of  answering  tliese 
questions,  —  that  the  very  putting  of  these  questions 
indicates  an  aberration  of  reason.  Reason  solves  only  the 
fundamental  question,  How  ?  And,  in  order  to  know  how, 
it  solves  the  questions.  Why  ?  and  What  for  ?  within  the 
limits  of  finality. 

What  how  ?     How  to  live.     How  live  ?     Blessedly. 

That  is  necessary  for  everything  living  and  for  me. 
This  possibihty  is  given  to  everything  living  and  to  me, 
and  this  solution  excludes  the  questions.  Why  ?  and  What 
for? 

But  why  and  for  what  is  blessedness  not  dissolved  at 
once  ?  Again  an  error  of  reasoning.  Blessedness  is  the 
doing  of  blessedness :  there  is  no  other. 

A  live  man  is  he  who  walks  ahead  toward  where  there 
is  the  light  of  a  moving  lantern,  and  who  never  reaches 
the  end  of  the  illuminated  place,  for  the  illuminated  place 
is  ahead  of  him.  This  is  life,  —  there  is  no  other ;  and 
only  with  such  hfe  is  there  no  death,  for  the  lantern 
illuminates  thither,  and  thither  you  follow  it  as  calmly  as 
during  the  whole  period  of  life. 

But  if  man  shields  the  lantern  or  begins  to  shed  light 
around  him  or  behind  him,  and  not  in  front  of  him,  and 
stops  walking,  there  will  be  an  arrest  of  life. 

But  if  there  is  no  meaning  in  my  life,  there  is  also 
none  in  the  life  of  man  and  in  that  of  humanity.     Thus 


442  ON   THE   MEANING   OF   LIFE 

speak  the  ancient  Buddhists  and  the  modern  pessimists. 
The  same  says  the  Grospel,  but  with  this  difference,  that 
the  Buddhists  and  pessimists  say  it  as  the  last  deduction, 
from  which  follows  the  negation  of  hfe ;  but  Christianity 
says  this  as  an  indication  of  the  false  comprehension  of 
life  as  held  by  the  Gentiles,  and  of  the  necessity  for 
another  comprehension,  the  Christian,  and  of  the  confir- 
mation of  life. 

Life  has  no  aim  which  is  comprehensible  to  man,  so 
also  says  Christianity.  But,  though  it  has  no  comprehen- 
sible aim,  it  still  has  one,  and  man's  vocation  consists 
in  serving  this  incomprehensible  aim.  An  aim  which 
is  comprehensible  to  man  would  be  a  finite  aim  ;  but 
the  aim  which  is  now  set  before  man  is  infinite,  and  the 
meaning  of  man's  life  consists  in  approaching  it.  The 
aim  which  is  comprehensible  only  in  infinity,  as  set 
before  man,  is  incomprehensible  to  him,  but  the  direction 
toward  its  goal  is  comprehensible. 

"How  can  one  live  without  knowing  what  will  be, 
without  knowing  in  what  forms  one  will  live  ? " 

The  real  life  begins  only  when  you  do  not  know  what 
will  be.  Only  then  you  create  life  and  fulfil  God's  will. 
He  knows.  Only  such  an  activity  serves  as  a  testimony 
of  a  belief  in  God  and  his  law.  Only  then  there  is 
freedom  and  life. 

We  must  be  in  relation  to  God's  will,  like  a  good 
thoroughbred  little  mare  that  I  used  to  drive :  she  did  not 
want  to  run  away,  or  to  stop  serving  me,  but  only  wanted 
to  guess  what  work  I  wished  her  to  do.  She  tried  now 
one  leg,  now  another,  now  a  third,  now  to  the  right,  now 
to  the  left,  now  raising  her  head,  and  now  dropping  it. 

Even  so  we  must  do. 

For  me  Christ's  teaching  became  most  comprehensible 


ON   THE   MEANING   OF   LIFE  443 

and  most  fully  took  possession  of  me,  when  I  saw  clearly 
that  my  life  was  not  mine,  hut  his  who  gave  it  to 
me,  and  that  the  aim  of  life  was  not  in  me,  but  in  his 
will,  and  that  it  was  necessary  to  find  it  and  to  do  it. 
This  transformed  me. 

If  God  would  only  free  us  from  the  evil  one,  from  the 
devil,  who  is  the  ego  in  me  and  you.  If  only  I  shall  not 
forget  that  my  hfe  is  not  for  to-morrow,  not  for  the 
ensuing  year,  not  in  Yasnaya  Polyana,  not  in  Moscow, 

not  with   X nor  without    her,  but  in  serving    the 

Father  everywhere,  always,  and  with  all  men,  and  aU  is 
well.  .  .  . 

This  is  what  we  ought  to  be  like,  as  Lao-tse  says,  — 
like  water.  If  there  are  no  obstacles,  it  flows ;  if  there 
is  a  dam,  it  stops;  if  the  dam  breaks  through,  it  flows 
again ;  in  a  square  vessel  it  is  square ;  in  a  round  vessel 
it  is  round.  For  this  reason  it  is  most  needful  and 
strong. 

The  force  with  which  we  are  convinced  of  something 
is  full,  complete,  imperturbable,  not  when  the  proofs  are 
logically  incontrovertible,  nor  when  the  feeling  coincides 
with  the  demands  of  reason,  but  only  when  man  has 
become  convinced  through  experience,  having  tried  the 
opposite,  that  there  is  but  one  path. 

Such  conviction  is  given  us  as  to  life's  being  but  this : 
the  following  of  God's  will. 

Imagine  that  a  beloved  woman  has  promised  you  a 
rendezvous  in  the  evening.  How  are  you  going  to  pass 
the  day  ?  How  will  you  prepare  yourself  for  this  meet- 
ing ?  How  afraid  you  will  be  that  you  wall  die,  that  the 
world  will  come  to  an  end  before  the  meeting !  If  only 
the  meeting  takes  place !     After  that  let  come  what  may. 


444  ON   THE    MEANING    OF    LIFE 

This  is  what  desiring  means.  It  is  in  this  way  that  I 
should  hke  to  wish  to  do  God's  will,  and  just  as  passion- 
ately to  wish  for  this  alone,  —  its  fulfilment.  Is  this  pos- 
sible ? 

Is  this  possible  ?  Yes,  it  is.  All  that  is  needed  for 
this  is  to  know  just  as  clearly  what  it  is  about  and  to 
be  conscious  of  one's  labour,  and  that  there  hao  to  be  a 
sacrifice. 

God  aid  you  to  rejoice  without  cessation  that  nobody 
can  anywhere  or  at  any  time  interfere  with  you,  —  to 
rejoice  at  the  fulfilment  of  his  wiU,  so  long  as  you  fulfil 
it  in  purity,  humility,  and  love. 

You  ask :  "  Why  live,  how  live,  and  what  shaU  I  do,  in 
order  to  have  a  right  to  live  ? "  First  of  all  we  must 
transpose  the  questions,  and  answer  the  question  as  to 
how  we  must  live,  and  then  only  we  shall  try  to  compre- 
hend why.  We  must  live.  We  have  lived  before  all 
reflection:  every  day  we  sleep,  eat  several  times,  move, 
think.  We  are  all  like  a  horse  in  a  treadmill,  the  wheel 
of  which  is  moving  below  us,  compelling  us  to  move.  We 
cannot  help  but  live,  and  so  the  first  and  chief  question, 
in  my  opinion  the  only  rational  question,  is  as  to  how  we 
shall  live.  We  all,  and  you,  too,  know  the  first  answer : 
in  the  best  manner  possible.  Thus  all  men  have  lived, 
that  is,  while  striving  after  it ;  thus  they  live  and  will 
hve. 

The  second  question  :  What  means  are  best  ?  In  what 
way  best  ?  The  answer  is  clear  for  a  man  who  knows 
himself  only :  as  many  enjoyments  as  possible.  But  as 
soon  as  a  man  understands  that  he  is  not  alone  and  feels 
the  sufferings  of  others,  the  first  answer  no  longer  satisfies 
him,  —  there  appears  a  contradiction  between  the  personal 
striving  after  enjoyments  and  his  conscience.  You  are 
in  precisely  this  contradiction.     In  order  to  solve  it,  you 


ON    THE    MEANING    OF    LIFE  445 

must  aj3andon  yourself  to  one  of  these  two  forces,  —  to 
the  striviug  after  the  jx'rsonal  good,  or  to  your  conscience, 
—  and  abandon  yourself  without  any  provision,  exception, 
or  compromise. 

To  abandon  yourself  to  the  striving  after  personal  hap- 
piness or  to  your  conscience  does  not  mean  that  you  are 
to  drown  the  voice  of  your  conscience  or  of  your  personal 
happiness,  but  that  in  your  consciousness  you  recognize 
only  one  of  the  two  as  life,  as  the  true  life.  Sufferings, 
doubts,  are  due  to  the  indecision  of  the  question  in  the 
consciousness.  If  it  were  so  that  your  demands  of  truth 
are  not  the  demands  of  your  conscience,  but  something 
impressed  upon  you  externally,  you  would,  by  renounc- 
ing conscience,  calm  yourself  and  Hve  and  enjoy  life,  as 
long  as  you  could.  (Of  course,  it  will  end  in  suffering,  I 
know.  But  you  cannot  take  this  on  trust,  if  the  demands 
of  conscience  have  not  yet  wakened  in  you.  But  they 
will  awaken,  because  the  movement  of  all  humanity  is 
from  the  striviug  after  the  personal  good  to  the  demands 
of  conscience.  All  this  I  say  only  as  a  very  improbable 
possibility.)  But  if  conscience  is  awakened  in  you,  you 
must  recognize  once  and  for  all  that  life  consists  only  in 
the  gratification  of  the  demands  of  this  conscience,  and 
you  will  again  be  calm,  and  life  will  receive  a  meaning 
for  you.  For  what  is  conscience  ?  Conscience  is  that 
highest  law  of  everything  living,  which  every  man  recog- 
nizes in  himself  not  only  by  the  admission  of  the  rights 
of  everything  living,  but  also  by  the  love  for  it.  The  de- 
mands of  conscience  are  what  in  Christian  language  is 
called  God's  will,  and  so  the  meaning  of  life  and  the 
answer  to  the  two  questions,  "  Why  must  we  live  and 
how  must  we  act  in  order  that  we  may  have  a  right  to 
Hve  ? "  consists  in  doing  God's  will,  which  is  cognized 
in  our  consciousness.  To  what  will  this  bring  you  ?  I 
do  not  know ;  but  I  know  that  the  clear  consciousness  of 
this  will  change  your  whole  external  life  and  will  give 


446  ON    THE    MEANING    OF   LIFE 

your  life  a  constant,more  and  more  clear,  joyful, and  rational 
meanii\g.  But  if  it  is  not  clear  to  you  what  conscience 
demands,  you  will  find  an  answer  for  it  in  the  Gospel. 

In  order  that  I  may  answer  your  question, "  What  shall 
we  live  for  ? "  you  must  first  of  all  renounce  all  worldly 
considerations,  all  questions  as  to  what  studies  are  to  be 
taken,  or  as  to  what  may  be  agreeable  or  disagreeable  for 
you  or  my  parents,  and  vividly  present  to  yourself  the 
situation  of  a  lonely,  separate  human  being,  which  has 
lately,  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago,  appeared  from  some- 
where, and  to-day  or  to-morrow,  in  ten,  twenty,  or  thirty 
years,  must  disappear  somewhere. 

Why  should  it  be  necessary  for  such  a  being  to  live, 
and  for  millions  and  billions  of  such  beings,  who  are  all 
in  precisely  the  same  condition  ?  Obviously  all  this  is 
not  made  for  these  beings,  even  as  all  the  screws,  wheels, 
and  pegs  of  a  large  engine  are  not  made  for  them,  but  in 
order  to  serve  the  common  purpose  of  the  engine. 

The  same  is  true  of  us:  we  are  the  instruments  of  that 
highest  will,  which  through  us  does  its  necessary  work. 
The  only  difference  is  that  we  recognize  ourselves  as  hving, 
and  are  able,  if  we  do  not  admit  that  we  are  the  tools  of 
the  highest  will,  to  suffer  from  our  situation,  or,  by  recog- 
nizing ourselves  as  the  necessary  tools  of  life,  to  feel  the 
joy  of  the  participation  in  an  infinitely  great  work,  which 
is  accomplished  by  the  life  of  the  world. 

But  you  will  ask  wherein  this  work  consists  ?  To  this 
I  will  reply  that  we  cannot  know  all  of  it,  but  may  always 
know  when  we  cooperate  with  it,  or  when  we  work  coun- 
ter to  it.  Love  relations  to  everything  living,  —  first  of 
all,  of  course,  toward  men,  toward  the  nearest  of  them,  — 
the  sensation  of  love  and  the  rousing  of  the  same  senti- 
ment in  others  is  a  sign  of  the  participation  in  the  general 
work ;  the  rousing  of  enmity  and  hatred  in  oneself  and  in 
others  is  a  sign  of  counteraction  to  the  general  work. 


ON   THE    MEANING    OF   LIFE  447 

Your  letter  has  not  only  interested  me,  —  it  has  drawn 
me  toward  you. 

I  tliink  that  you  are  seeking  what  every  young  man  ought 
to  seek,  and  what  men  cannot  live  without,  although  the 
whole  life  among  the  higher,  well-to-do  classes  has  formed 
itself  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it  possible  for  men  to  live 
without  it.  What  you  seek  and  toward  what  you  are 
drawn,  earlier  than  is  the  case  with  other  men,  by  your 
nature,  which  is  more  serious  than  that  of  the  majority  of 
men,  is  the  clearly  cognized  meaning  of  your  life :  What 
do  I  live  for  ?  Certainly  not  in  order  to  procreate,  send 
into  the  world,  and  educate  just  such  people  as  I  am,  who 
do  not  know  what  they  live  for ;  and  certainly  not  in 
order  to  make  archaeological  investigations,  which  are  of 
very  doubtful  utility  to  men. 

We  can  live  without  anything,  except  an  answer  to  this 
question.  In  the  meantime  it  is  considered  in  our  quasi- 
cultured  world  not  only  as  a  sign  of  a  certain  mental 
superiority  not  to  know  this,  but  even  to  assert  that  it  is 
impossible  to  know  this. 

It  is  only  religion  which  will  give  an  answer  to  this 
question.  If  that  religion  in  which  you  believed  is  des- 
troyed by  your  critical  relation  toward  it,  immediately 
look  for  another,  that  is,  for  another  answer  to  the  ques- 
tion as  to  what  you  live  for.  Just  as  you  cannot  be  for 
a  moment  without  a  king,  as  they  say,  Le,  roi  est  mort, 
Vive  le  roi,  so  one  can  much  less  be  for  a  moment  without 
this  king  in  the  head  and  the  heart.  Nothing  but  religion, 
that  is,  an  answer  to  the  question,  What  do  I  live  for  ? 
will  give  you  that  which  will  make  it  possible  for  you  to 
forget  yourself,  your  insignificant,  perishable,  satiated,  and 
intolerably  exacting  personality. 

I  have  written  of  nothing  but  this  in  my  books  which 
are  prohibited  in  Eussia.  If  you  read  them,  you  will 
find  in  them  the  answer  which  I  have  found  for  myself. 
But  if  you  have  not  read  my  books  or,  having  read  them, 


448  ON   THE    MEANING    OF   LIFE 

have  not  found  that  answer,  I  can  tell  it  to  you  in  three 
words : 

I  live  in  order  to  do  the  will  of  him  who  sent  me  into 
life.  But  the  will  of  God  is  this,  that  I  should  carry  my 
soul  to  the  highest  degree  of  perfection  in  love,  and  that 
in  this  way  I  should  cooperate  in  the  unification  of  all 
men  and  of  all  beings  in  the  world. 


"O" 


Everybody  decides  this  in  his  own  way,  and  the  truth 
about  the  sword  and  division  remains  none  the  less  a  truth 
for  all,  no  matter  how  you  may  decide  it.  I  want  to  tell 
you  this  much,  —  what  I  have  learned  by  experience,  — 
what  you  are  to  be  guided  by  in  similar  circumstances, 
—  in  the  crush  of  life,  when  one  gets  into  it  and  feels 
that  there  is  one,  only  one  path,  and  that  it  will  be  bad 
if  one  does  not  get  on  that  path.     This  is  what  I  think : 

It  is  not  given  to  us  to  know  the  will  of  the  Father, 
what  it  consists  in,  what  he  wants,  why  he  has  been 
doing  all  this  (if  I  may  express  myself  so  from  old  habit 
and  for  the  sake  of  illustration),  what  the  aim  of  your 
life  and  of  mine  is ;  and  when  we  imagine  that  we  know 
the  aim  of  the  Father,  we  get  entangled  in  a  most  cruel 
manner.  We  cannot  know  his  purpose,  if  for  no  other 
reason  than  because  it  is  infinite. 

But  we  know,  and  we  can  always  know,  whether  we 
are  doing  his  will,  —  what  we  live  for,  what  he  wants  of 
us.  He  holds  us  as  by  reins,  and  we,  as  a  horse,  do  not 
know  whither  we  shall  come  and  why ;  but  we  know  by 
the  pain,  when  we  are  not  going  where  we  ought  to,  and 
by  the  freedom  and  absence  of  restraint  that  we  are  going 
right.  And  so  we  know  by  experience  and  with  our 
whole  being  that  the  first,  chief,  and  only  (the  rest  being 
embraced  by  it)  sign  of  the  fulfilment  of  God's  will  is 
this,  that  we  feel  at  ease  and  not  pained,  and  even  joyous. 
He,  loving  us,  wanted  that  of  us,  and  we  know  that  it  is 
necessary. 


ON    TUE    MEANING    OF    LIFE  449 

The  second  sign,  but  in  dependence  on  the  first,  is  this, 
that  others  should  have  no  pain,  that  my  activity  may 
not  call  forth  a  groan  of  suffering.  Now,  here  is  the 
problem  :  one,  as  it  were,  excludes  the  other.  But  "  as 
it  were  "  !  When  this  seems  so,  it  is  a  sign  that  life  takes 
place  in  the  crush,  that  there  is  not  much  of  a  path  and 
it  is  of  indifferent  breadth,  that  the  true  path  is  narrow, 
as  narrow  as  the  point  of  a  knife,  but  it  exists.  Feeling 
the  sufferings  of  others  as  one's  own,  as  you  do,  one  can 
and  must  find  that  path  which  makes  one  feel  at  ease. 
That  will  be  when  I  have  done  everything  which  depends 
on  me  in  order  to  alleviate  the  sufferings  of  others. 
There  exists,  there  exists  that  path,  dear  friend.  You 
must  pray,  that  is,  commune  with  God,  and  this  path  will 
be  found.  The  harder  this  search  is,  the  more  joyful  it  is. 
Yes,  man  must  be  free  and  almighty,  and  there  is  that 
one  direction  along  which  he  is  free  and  almighty,  and  it 
can  be  found. 

But  there  is  also  a  third  sign,  which  I  have  found  for 
myself.  This  is  not  a  diminution,  but  an  increase  of  the 
soul.  This  sign  is  dear  to  me  in  that  it  verifies  the  choice. 
If  an  act,  a  manner  of  life,  a  path,  takes  away  or  dimin- 
ishes the  soul,  it  is  not  the  right  one.  I  cannot  say  that 
this  sign  can  be  taken  as  a  guide,  —  God  f orf end,  —  but 
to  use  all  my  forces  in  tlie  search  of  a  path  between  the 
sufferings  of  others  caused  by  me  and  the  oppression  which 
I  experience,  and  to  lay  out  tliis  path  for  myself,  it  is 
possible  to  verify  its  correctness  by  means  of  this  sign. 

The  true  food  of  life  consists  in  doing  the  will  of  him 
who  has  sent  us  hither  and  in  completing  liis  work.  But 
the  will  of  him  who  sent  us  and  his  work  is  this,  that, 
in  the  first  place,  we  should  pay  the  tribute  for  the  life 
given  to  us  with  good  deeds ;  and  good  deeds  are  those 
which  increase  love  in  men ;  and  his  work  is  to  increase 
the  talent,  to  add  to  the  talent,  our  soul,  which  is  given 


450  ON   THE   MEANING   OF   LIFE 

to  us.  And  the  one  cannot  be  done  without  the  other. 
It  is  impossible  to  do  good  deeds,  which  increase  love, 
without  increasing  the  talent,  one's  soul,  without  increas- 
ing love  in  it ;  and  it  is  impossible  to  increase  one's 
talent,  to  increase  the  love  in  one's  soul,  without  doing 
good  to  people,  by  increasing  love  in  them.  Thus,  one 
depends  on  the  other,  and  one  verifies  the  other.  If  you 
do  a  deed  which  you  consider  good,  but  do  not  feel  an 
increase  of  love  in  your  soul,  if  there  is  no  joy  at  this  in 
your  soul,  know  that  the  deed  which  you  do  is  not  good. 
And  if  you  do  something  for  your  soul,  and  the  good  is 
therewith  not  increased  in  men,  know  that  what  you  are 
doing  for  your  soul  is  useless. 

Seek  the  kingdom  of  God  and  his  righteousness,  and 
the  rest  shall  be  added  unto  you.  Seek  to  be  the  doers 
of  God's  will,  and  nothing,  nothing  more.  There  will  be 
everything :  righteousness,  and  joy,  and  life,  not  to  speak 
of  bread  and  raiment,  which  are  not  needed.  All  that  is 
needed  is  the  daily  bread,  the  food  of  life,  of  which  Christ 
has  spoken. 

The  fulfilment  of  God's  will  is  the  work  of  life;  but 
wherein  does  the  will  of  God  consist  ?  Shall  we  do  this 
or  that  act,  in  order  that  we  may  do  God's  will  ?  Shall 
we  place  ourselves  in  such  or  such  conditions :  give  up 
the  property,  leave  the  family,  arraign  people  ?  Shall  we 
go  to  Nineveh  or  to  Jerusalem  ?  and  so  forth.  And  there 
is  no  answer. 

Neither  the  one,  nor  the  other,  nor  the  third  is  neces- 
sary, and  no  condition  or  act  corresponds  to  the  fulfilment 
of  God's  will;  it  not  only  does  not  correspond,  but  it 
even  interferes,  because  every  action  according  to  one's 
own  will,  every  change  of  situation,  is  an  insub mission 
to  the  will  of  God.  But  the  fulfilment  of  God's  will,  like 
his  kingdom,  is  witliin  us  :  the  fulfilment  is  not  in  acts, 


ON    TUE    MEANING    OF    LIFE  451 

but  iu  submissiou,  in  a  meek  and  humble  relation  to  the 
demands  of  the  life,  in  which  one  happens  to  be. 

You  say :  the  demands  are  contrary  to  conscience,  or 
there  are  several  contradictory  demands,  or  none  at  all. 

All  you  have  to  do  is  to  bear  yourself  meekly  and 
humbly  in  respect  to  the  demands,  if  they  are  contrary 
to  your  conscience,  that  is,  to  refuse  to  fulfil  them,  with- 
out boasting  or  fury,  but  with  humility  and  meekness  ; 
or,  bear  yourself  with  meekness  and  humility  in  respect 
to  the  demands  which  seem  to  be  contradictory,  turning 
away  from  your  will,  in  the  presence  of  God  alone,  and 
the  contradiction  will  be  removed.  But  it  is  impossible 
that  there  should  be  no  demands.  Even  the  mere  needs 
of  the  body  are  demands,  and  it  is  possible  to  eat  and 
sleep  and  cover  oneself  with  meekness  and  humility. 

Yes,  the  will  of  God  is  not  in  this,  what  to  do  (what 
to  do  life  shows),  but  how  to  do.  How  is  that  which 
creates  the  true  spiritual  life. 

I  lately  thought  of  this,  that  it  is  the  business  of  a 
Christian  to  do  the  will  of  the  Father ;  but  wherein  is 
the  will  of  the  Father  ?  How  are  we  to  find  out,  so  as 
not  to  make  a  mistake  ?  Or  I  might  begin  to  think  that 
it  is  the  will  of  the  Father  that  I  should  preach,  or  live 
this  way  or  that  way,  —  live  with  the  family,  or  without 
it.  And  if  you  begin  to  question  yourself  in  this  manner, 
you  will  never  find  out  wherein  is  the  will  of  the  Father, 
and  you  will  arrive  at  doubt  and  dejection :  why  are  we 
commanded  to  do  the  will  of  the  Father,  and  not  shown 
in  what  it  consists  ? 

And  this  is  the  way  I  think  about  it :  that  the  will  of 
the  Father  is  clearly  shown  to  us,  but  that  we  do  not 
seek  it  where  it  is  shown  to  us.  We  think  all  the  time 
that  the  will  of  the  Father  can  be  in  external  works,  like 
Abraham's  going  into  a  strange  land,  and  so  forth ;  but 
the  will  of  the  Father  is  only  in  this,  that  we  should  be 


452  ON   THE    MEANING    OF    LIFE 

meek  and  humble  in  the  yoke  into  which  we  are  hitched, 
and  that,  without  asking  whither,  why,  what  we  are  haul- 
ing, we  should  pull  as  long  as  we  have  strength,  and  stop 
when  we  are  told  to,  and  should  pull  again  when  we  are 
told  to,  and  turn  whither  we  are  told  to,  and  not  ask 
why  and  whither.  "  Take  my  yoke  upon  yourselves  and 
learn  of  me,  because  I  am  meek  and  humble," 

Be  meek  and  humble,  be  satisfied  with  everything  and 
prepared  for  every  situation,  and  you  will  do  the  will  of 
the  Father.  Thus,  to  fulfil  the  will  of  the  Father,  it  is 
necessary  to  find  out,  not  what  to  do,  but  how  to  do  what 
we  are  called  to  do. 

Life  is  in  the  doing  of  the  will  of  God.  In  what  does 
this  will  of  God  consist  ? 

Everything  which  we  may  set  as  our  aim,  as  the  will 
of  God,  —  everything  is  insufficient,  iucomplete,  —  every- 
thing is  only  a  sign,  but  not  the  will  itself  of  God,  just 
as  an  individual  'labourer  cannot  understand  the  whole 
work  of  the  contractor.  (However  miserable  and  petty 
this  comparison  of  the  will  of  God  is,  that  is,  the  compar- 
ison of  everything,  with  the  will  of  the  contractor,  it  by 
its  very  inadequacy  shows  how  impossible  it  is  for  man 
to  understand  the  will  of  God.)  We,  too,  have  a  sign 
that  we  are  doing  the  will  of  God,  but  the  will  of  God  we 
never  know.  By  all  these  signs  we  can  tell  that  we  are 
doing  his  will ;  but  that  wherein  his  will  consists  will 
always  remain  a  mystery  to  us. 

And  so  it  must  be.  There  could  be  no  life,  no  eternal 
life,  if  the  aim  toward  which  we  strive  were  intelligible 
to  us,  —  consequently,  finite. 

But  there  are  given  to  us  the  most  incontestable  signs 
that  we  are  living  according  to  his  will,  and  not  contrary 
to  it,  as  the  reins  permit  a  horse  to  go  in  one  direction 
only. 

The  very  first,  chief,  incontestable  sign,  which  we  are 


ON   THE    MEANING    OF    LIFE  453 

SO  prone  to  neglect,  is  the  absence  of  a  sensation  of  spirit- 
ual suffering  (as  with  the  horse  the  absence  of  the  sensa- 
tion of  pain  from  the  bit).  If  you  experience  full  liberty, 
which  is  not  impaired  by  anything,  you  are  living  accord- 
ing to  God's  will. 

Another  sign,  which  verifies  the  first,  is  the  unimpaired 
love  for  men.  If  you  feel  no  hostility  toward  any  one, 
and  know  that  people  do  not  feel  evil  toward  you,  you  are 
in  the  will  of  God. 

A  third  sign,  which  again  verities  the  first  and  is  veri- 
jBed  by  it,  is  spiritual  growth.  If  you  feel  that  you  are 
becoming  more  spiritual,  if  you  conquer  the  animal,  you 
are  in  the  will  of  God. 

We  know,  we  know  for  certain,  when  we  are  living 
according  to  the  will  of  God ;  but  we  do  not  know  God's 
will  itself,  and  we  must  remember,  must  know,  that  we 
do  not  know  and  cannot  know  it,  and  must  not  put  forth 
external  aims,  identifying  them  with  the  will  of  God,  no 
matter  how  high  these  aims  may  appear,  as,  for  example, 
the  instruction  of  men  in  the  truths  of  religion,  the  ac- 
tual establishment  of  the  kingdom  of  God  upon  earth,  the 
indication  of  an  example  of  a  godly  life,  and  many  other 
tilings. 

The  mare  knows  for  certain  that  she  is  walking  accord- 
ing to  the  will  of  her  master  when  the  reins  do  not  jerk 
her,  but  she  does  not  know  the  master's  will,  and  woe  to 
her  if  she  imagines  that  she  does  know  this  will.  The 
master  turns  the  bespattered  mare  from  the  highway  into 
the  mud  and  compels  her  to  enter  into  a  dirty  yard,  which 
is  crowded  with  other  horses.  It  seems  clear  to  the  mare 
that  it  is  the  master's  will  that  she  should  pull  a  load 
along  the  highway,  and  she  pulls  the  load ;  but  the  turn- 
ing into  the  dirt  of  the  yard  and  the  keeping  company 
with  other  horses,  —  that,  according  to  the  mare's  judg- 
ment, is  not  what  the  master  must  want,  and  she  is  stub- 
born, and   complains,  and  suffers.     She  does  not  know 


454  ON    THE    MEANING    OF    LIFE 

that  the  master  turned  her  into  the  yard  in  order  to  put 
the  load  on  other  horses  and  to  feed  the  mare,  for  he  is 
compassionate  with  her,  expecting  a  colt  from  her. 

Even  so  I  have  often  been  stubborn,  complaining  of 
my  fate  and  of  the  reins  which  led  whither  they  led  me, 
and  I  suffered.  It  was  all  due  to  this,  that  I  imagined  a 
certain  realization  in  the  world  of  God's  will.  There,  I 
have  given  up  my  property,  have  renounced  all  luxury, 
and  live,  showing  by  my  example  how  one  can  and  must 
live  according  to  God's  will.  .  .  .  Suddenly  I  am  turned 
to  one  side,  into  the  mud,  where  it  is  crowded.  I  think 
that  God's  work  is  retarded  and.  impaired  by  this; 
whereas  it  is  really  being  accomplished  by  it,  so  long 
as  the  signs  are  in  evidence  that  I  am  living  according 
to  God's  will. 

I  am  seeking  for  the  nearest  consequences,  and  am 
grieved  because  I  do  not  see  them,  and  I  do  not  know 
those  consequences  which  are  a  million  times  greater  and 
are  obtained  in  this  roundabout  way. 

We  must  hve  for  the  purpose  of  doing  the  will  of  him 
who  has  sent  us  into  the  world,  and  we  must  live  in  such 
a  way  that  this  will  can  be  fulfilled.  The  fulfilment  of 
this  will  gives  us  the  right  to  live,  or,  to  express  myself 
more  exactly,  gives  us  the  assurance  that  our  life  not 
only  has  a  meaning,  but  is  also  necessary  and  needful  for 
him  who  has  sent  us  into  the  world. 

But  you  will  ask :  "  In  what  does  this  will  consist,  and 
how  are  we  to  know  when  we  do  it,  and  when  not  ? " 
This  will  demands  two  things  of  us :  a  constant  self-per- 
fection and  a  constant  cooperation  with  the  establishment 
of  the  kingdom  of  God  upon  earth,  that  is,  of  an  order  of 
things,  in  which  all  men  would  recognize  themselves  as 
equal  brothers  and  would  love  one  another.  In  order 
that  you  may  know  with  each  piece  of  work  whether  you 
are  doing  the  will  of  him  who  has  sent  you,  or  not,  you 


ON   THE    MEANING   OF   LIFE  455 

must  ask  yourself  whether  this  work  contributes  at  the 
same  time  to  your  perfection  (but  perfection  consists  in 
the  increase  of  love)  and  to  the  estabhshment  of  the  king- 
dom of  God,  that  is,  the  increase  of  love  in  men.  If  the 
work  satisfies  only  one  thing,  your  perfection,  but  does 
not  serve  men  by  increasing  the  love  in  them  ;  if  it  serves 
men,  but  does  not  evoke  love  in  thee,  increasing  it,  —  it 
is  not  God's  work,  not  the  fulfilment  of  his  will. 

Briefly  expressed,  the  meaning  of  life  is  this,  that  every 
live  man  is  God's  tool,  a  tool  through  which  the  higher 
power  does  its  work.  And  so  the  meaning  of  life  consists 
in  doing  in  the  best  manner  possible  the  work  which  this 
higher  power  demands  of  you.  And  you  can  always  know 
whether  you  are  doing  this  work,  or  not :  conscience  is  an 
indicator  of  it.  All  you  have  to  do  is  to  listen  to  it  and 
to  try  to  make  it  more  and  more  sensitive. 

One  has  frequently  occasion  to  hear  and  read  contro- 
versies and  discussions  as  to  what  should  be  the  aim  of 
human  life,  —  internal  moral  perfection  or  the  service 
of  humanity,  the  estabhshment  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 
This  controversy  can  never  be  settled,  because  both  sides 
are  right :  both  aims  are  set  before  man  and  humanity, 
and  one  aim  not  only  does  not  exclude  the  other,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  both  coincide,  and  one  conditions  the  other. 

What  aim  must  a  mason  set  to  himself  in  taking  part 
in  the  work  of  rearing  a  structure,  —  the  greatest  perfec- 
tion of  the  work  of  his  day,  or  the  building  of  the  struc- 
ture ?  The  mason  will  reach  the  highest  perfection  of 
the  work  of  his  day  only  when  he  will  have  as  an 
aim  the  building  of  the  structure,  and  he  can  contribute  to 
the  building  of  the  structure  only  when  he  will  strive 
after  performing  the  work  of  his  day  in  the  best  manner 
possible. 

Only  by  setting  as  an  external  aim  the  establishment 
of  the  kingdom  of  God,  does  man  reach  the  highest  per- 


456  ON"   THE    MEANING    OF   LIFE 

fectioLi  of  life  which  is  accessible  to  him ;  and  only  by 
striving  after  this  highest  perfection  of  life  and  obtaining 
it,  does  he  cooperate  with  the  establishment  of  the  king- 
dom of  God. 

Both  he  who  strives  after  the  perfection  of  human  life, 
after  the  estabHshment  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  without 
establishing  it  in  himself,  and  he  who  strives  after  a 
personal  self-perfection  which  has  not  for  its  aim  the 
establishment  of  the  kingdom  of  God  outside  himself, 
are  equally  in  error  and  do  not  fulfil  their  vocations. 

Man  is  placed  in  such  circumstances  that  the  only 
possible,  true,  rational  good  for  him  consists  in  the  striv- 
ing after  personal  self-perfection ;  but  the  personal  self- 
perfection  is  such  that  it  is  attained  only  when  man 
recognizes  himself  as  a  tool  of  God  for  the  establishment 
of  his  kingdom. 

"  The  kingdom  of  God  cometh  not  with  observation : 
neither  shall  they  say,  Lo  here !  or,  lo  there !  for,  behold, 
the  kingdom  of  God  is  within  you." 

In  proportion  as  a  man  attains  internal  perfection,  he 
establishes  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  only  in  establishing 
the  kingdom  of  God  does  he  move  toward  internal  perfec- 
tion. Without  the  consciousness  of  this,  that  my  effort 
cooperates  wnth  the  establishment  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
by  the  approach  to  the  perfection  of  the  Father,  there 
would  be  no  life.  And  so  each  of  us  lives  only  in  propor- 
tion as  he  establishes  the  kingdom  of  God  within  himself 
and  perfects  himself  inwardly. 

The  assertion  that  man  may  shght  his  moral  obligatious 
with  the  view  of  attaining  general  ends  is  like  what  a  man 
would  do  if  he  asked :  "  What  must  the  aim  of  a  stoker, 
or  water-carrier,  or  smith  be  in  a  manufacturing  plant, — 
to  look  after  the  fires,  haul  water,  forge  a  hook,  or  to  care 
for  the  business  of  the  whole  establishment?" 


ON    THE    MEANING    OF   LIFE  457 

Neither  the  one  nor  the  other  aim  taken  separately 
satisfies  the  demands  of  human  life,  because  both  aims  are 
set  at  the  same  time  before  man  and  humanity,  and  one 
aim  not  only  does  not  exclude  the  other,  but  on  the  con- 
trary, both  coincide,  and  one  conditions  the  other. 

In  order  to  do  God's  will  it  is  necessary  to  do  his  work  ; 
in  order  to  do  his  work  two  things  are  needed,  not  sepa- 
rately, but  both  together :  what  is  needed  is  reason  and 
love,  and  truth  and  good ;  it  is  necessary  for  reason  to  be 
love-bearing,  that  is,  for  its  activity  to  have  love  for  its 
aim,  or  for  love  to  be  rational,  that  is,  for  love  not  to  be 
contrary  to  reason. 

An  example  of  the  first  is  the  scientific  activity  of  the 
mind :  the  investigation  of  the  milky  way,  the  finesses  of 
metaphysics,  the  natural  sciences,  art  for  art's  sake ;  an 
example  of  the  second  is  the  love  for  one  woman,  for  one's 
children,  for  one's  nation,  a  love  which  has  for  its  aim,  not 
the  spiritual,  but  the  animal  good. 

The  fruit  of  the  activity  of  reason  is  truth ;  the  fruit  of 
the  activity  of  love  is  goodness.  But  in  order  that  there 
may  be  fruit  it  is  necessary  for  both  activities  to  coincide. 
Goodness  will  come  only  from  a  rational  love  which  is 
verified  by  truth,  and  truth  will  result  only  from  a  love- 
bearing  activity  which  has  for  its  aim  the  good  of  reason. 

All  this  is  not  my  invention,  but  I  have  seen  it." 

We  all  think  that  our  duty,  our  calling,  is  to  do  various 
things :  to  educate  the  children,  acquire  a  fortune,  write 
books,  discover  a  scientific  law  ;  but  we  need  only  one 
thing,  and  that  is,  that  our  life  may  be  unimpaired,  good, 
and  rational,  —  not  before  men,  leaving  behind  us  the 
memory  of  a  good  life,  but  before  God :  to  ofifer  ourselves 
to  him,  our  soul,  better  than  it  was,  nearer  to  him,  more 
in  harmony  with  him.  It  is  very  hard  to  think  so,  still 
more  to  feel  so.     One  gets  so  easily  off  the  track  in  the 


458  ON   THE    MEANING   OF   LIFE 

direction   of   human  glory,  but  this   can   and  must  be. 
Help  me,  God !  I  feel  it  at  times,  and  even  now. 

I  have  been  thinking  of  what  one  ought  to  remember 
in  moments  of  dejection  of  spirit,  of  grief,  fear,  annoyance, 
or  anger  at  people  : 

Remember  that  your  life  is  only  in  doing  the  will  of 
God  upon  earth ;  but  it  is  impossible  to  do  the  will 
of  God :  you  can  only  increase  your  spiritual  essence ; 
and  you  can  increase  your  spiritual  essence  by  the  observ- 
ance of  purity  in  your  animal,  of  humility  in  your  human 
(worldly),  and  of  love  in  your  divine  Hfe.  But  for  the 
observance  of  purity  you  need  privations,  for  humility  — 
ill  fame  and  humiliations,  for  love  —  the  enmity  of  men 
toward  you  ("  If  ye  love  them  that  love  you,  what  reward," 
etc.).  And  so,  what  you  call  sufferings,  what  you  com- 
plain about,  what  causes  you  worry,  what  you  are  sorry 
for,  what  you  fear,  —  all  this  is  nothing  but  privations 
and  pains,  or  ill  fame,  offences,  humiliations,  or  enmity  of 
men  toward  you;  but  all  these  are- necessary  for  you,  in 
order  that  you  may  preserve  purity,  humility,  love,  —  that 
you  may  increase  your  spiritual  essence,  that  you  may 
serve  the  kingdom  of  God,  —  for  Hfe.  And  so  I  must 
not  be  grieved,  but  rejoice  at  privations,  and  humiliations, 
and  enmity. 

Indeed,  could  God  have  placed  man  in  such  a  terrible 
position,  where  he  would  bear  privations,  humiliations,  and 
enmity,  without  receiving  his  rewards  for  it  ?  This  is  not 
possible,  and  it  does  not  exist.  It  is  impossible  to  answer 
whether  there  is  any  reward  in  the  other  world,  or  not. 
The  question  is  incorrectly  put.  First  it  is  necessary  to 
change  the  false  view,  which  ought  not  to  be,  from  which 
such  a  question  can  arise.  It  is  as  though  lazy  people, 
starving  as  the  result  of  their  laziness,  should  ask  whether 
they  will  receive  a  reward  in  the  next  world,  because  they 
are  obliged,  to  work  in  order  to  feed  themselves.    There 


ON   THE    MEANING   OF   LIFE  459 

will  be  no  reward ;  but  we  must  understand  that  the 
work  which  gives  bread  is  a  necessary  condition  of  animal 
hfe.  Even  so  we  must  understand  that  the  endurance 
of  privations,  humiliations,  and  enmity  is  a  necessary  con- 
dition of  the  spiritual  hfe. 

The  chief  delusion  of  human  life  is  this,  that  it  appears 
to  each  one  individually  that  the  striving  after  enjoyment 
and  the  disgust  at  suffering  form  the  guide  of  his  life. 
And  man,  all  alone,  without  any  guidance,  entrusts  him- 
self to  this  guide,  seeks  enjoyments,  and  avoids  sufferings, 
and  assumes  that  the  aim  and  meaning  of  life  hes  in  this. 
But  man  can  never  live  by  enjoying  himself,  and  cannot 
avoid  sufferings.  Consequently  the  aim  of  life  cannot  he 
in  this.  And  if  it  did,  how  absurd !  The  aim  is  enjoy- 
ments, and  they  do  not  exist  and  cannot  exist.  And  if 
they  existed,  the  end  of  life  is  death,  which  is  always 
connected  with  sufferings.  If  a  sailor  decided  that  it  is 
his  aim  to  avoid  the  rise  of  the  waves,  whither  would 
he  sail  ?  The  aim  of  life  is  outside  of  enjoyments  and 
sufferings.  It  is  attained  by  passing  through  them.  En- 
joyments, sufferings,  —  they  are  the  breath  of  hfe :  the 
inhalation  and  the  exhalation,  the  food  and  its  discharge. 
To  place  one's  aim  in  enjoyments  and  in  the  avoidance 
of  sufferings  means  to  lose  the  path  wliich  cuts  through 
them.     The  aim  of  hfe  is  general  or  spiritual. 

"  Eepent  ye,  come  to  your  senses."  You  must  under- 
stand the  insipidity  of  the  meaning  which  you  ascribe  to 
life.  Look  at  yourself,  and  understand  who  you  are,  what 
you  are,  and  what  you  live  for.  The  personal  good  of  the 
individual  man,  or  even  of  the  family  or  of  the  state, 
cannot  be  the  aim  of  your  Hfe.  He  did  not  teach  them 
anything  new,  but  only  opened  their  eyes  to  what  they 
themselves  cannot  help  but  see,  to  this,  that  the  meaning 
of  human  life  does  not  consist  in  each  man's  acquiring  his 


460  ON   THE    MEANING    OF    LIFE 

personal,  frail,  deceptive,  aud  short-lived  good  at  the  ex- 
pense of  another.  The  meaning  of  your  life,  he  said  to 
them,  can  be  only  in  the  fulfilment  of  that  will  which, 
for  the  attainment  of  its  ends,  has  sent  you  into  this  life. 
But  this  will,  which  consists  in  the  estabhshmeut  of  the 
kingdom  of  God,  that  is,  in  the  union  and  love  of  all  crea- 
tures among  themselves,  coincides  with  that  fundamental 
striving  after  the  good  which  lies  in  your  soul.  You  must 
understand  that  your  life  is  not  yours,  not  your  property, 
but  his  who  produced  it  for  his  own  purposes,  and  that 
the  highest  possible  good  is  given  you  only  under  the  con- 
dition of  doing  his  will.  Seek  the  kingdom  of  God  and 
his  righteousness,  and  the  rest  shall  be  added  unto  you. 

Be  always  ready  for  that  hour.  Be  ready  for  it,  like 
a  master  watching  his  house,  like  the  virgins  with  the 
lamps,  meeting  the  bridegroom.  And  not  only  be  pre- 
pared to  meet  this  hour,  but  work  with  aU  your  might 
that  it  may  be  near,  as  the  servants  had  to  work,  when 
the  master  going  away  entrusted  them  with  various 
amounts  of  talents,  according  to  their  strength  (Matt. 
xxiv.,  XXV.). 

One  side  of  Christ's  teaching,  which  is  connected  with 
everything  else  and  is  even  fundamental,  was  completely 
obscured,  and  even  concealed  from  us  by  his  deification, 
namely,  his  teaching  of  the  embassy.  Eemember  how 
often  and  from  how  many  sides  he  says  that  he  is  doing 
the  will  of  him  who  sent  him  ;  that  he  is  nothing  himself, 
but  that  he  is  an  ambassador  and  unites  his  hfe  with  him 
who  has  sent  him  ;  that  his  whole  life,  its  whole  meaning, 
is  the  fulfilment  of  the  embassy.  Only  our  recognizing  him 
as  a  special  being,  and  not  as  a  man,  such  as  we  are,  could 
have  concealed  from  us  this  foundation  of  his  teaching. 

I  have  now  arrived  at  it,  and  understand  it  with  my 
whole  being.     Endless  doubts  and  obscurities  in  life  in 


ON   THE    MEANING    OF    LIFE  461 

the  fulfilment  of  Christ's  teaching  had  always  tormented 
me.  I  solved  them  the  best  I  knew  how,  but  I  always 
felt  my  lack  of  clearness  and  iirmness.  And  only  now 
has  it  become  clear  to  me  that  the  solution  of  all  doubts 
and  difficulties  in  the  execution  of  the  teaching  consists 
in  this,  that  we  do  not  recognize  in  life  that  one  meaning 
which  it  has,  and  which  Christ  has  pointed  out  to  us,  — 
the  service  of  truth  (that  higher  truth  which  you  com- 
prehend) and  its  implanting  not  only  in  men,  but  also  in 
the  whole  world. 

Life  is  given  you  with  your  reason  for  this  very  pur- 
pose, that  you  may  introduce  this  reason  into  the  world, 
and  so  the  whole  of  life  is  nothing  but  this  rational 
activity  as  manifested  in  me.  Christ  understood  himself 
as  an  ambassador,  and  so  taught  us.  Every  one  of  us  is  a 
power  which  is  conscious  of  itself,  which  is  conscious  of 
its  common  aim,  and  so  joyfully  tends  toward  this  aim, — 
a  flying  stone  that  knows  whither  it  is  flying,  and  that  it 
is  itself  nothing,  a  stone,  and  that  all  its  significance  is  in 
this  flight. 

We  need  only  make  this  view  of  life  our  own  (namely, 
the  force  of  Christ's  teaching)  and  all  terrors  and  doubts 
disappear.  My  chief  woi-k  does  not  consist  merely  in 
keeping  the  five  commandments,  in  not  having  any  prop- 
erty, in  not  sinning,  —  all  those  are  not  works,  but  con- 
ditions under  which  I  can  be  sure  that  I  am  fulfilling  my 
calling,  and  forms  of  my  interaction  with  others,  —  but 
my  work  is  to  hve,  by  introducing  the  rational  principle 
into  the  world,  using  for  that  purpose  all  the  means  at 
my  command. 

I  can  fall,  sin,  err,  —  the  work  of  my  life  will  not 
change  in  consequence  of  this,  nor  will  my  happiness  and 
the  peace  of  my  life.  But  with  this  view  the  idle  com- 
miserations, and  the  wishes,  and  the  terror  of  death,  are 
annihilated,  and  the  whole  of  life  is  transformed  into  the 
present. 


462  ON   THE    MEANING    OF    LIFE 

If  my  whole  life  consists  in  shedding  upon  others  the 
light  which  is  within  me,  that  is,  if  my  life  is  in  the  light, 
my  death  not  only  fails  to  be  terrible,  but  is  joyous,  be- 
cause each  of  us  with  his  personality  dims  the  light  which 
he  bears.  Physical  death  frequently  contributes  to  that 
light  in  which  hfe  is  centred. 

The  practical  application  is  this,  that  each  of  us  must 
place  all  the  interests  of  his  life  in  carrying  the  truth 
through  life  and  implanting  it  in  others,  and  then  there 
will  be  no  doubts  and  no  sufferings  and  no  idleness  for 
him.  Each  of  us  is  always  surrounded  by  men,  and  so 
can  always  do  his  work  of  life. 

How  we  must  always  remember  our  dignity  of  God's 
ambassador,  to  whom  God's  work  has  been  entrusted !  If 
I  were  the  Tsar's  ambassador  in  Turkey,  how  I  would  take 
care  of  myself !  But  now  I  am  God's  ambassador  in  the 
world,  and  so  everything  must  give  way  to  that.  The  Tsar 
may  not  find  out  something,  but  here  it  is  impossible  to 
conceal  anything. 

Man  is  an  ambassador,  as  Christ  has  said,  —  that's  it, 
an  ambassador,  to  whom  all  that  is  important  is  to  carry 
out  what  has  been  entrusted  to  him,  and  who  does  not 
care  what  they  think  of  him.  Let  them  think  ill :  some- 
times that  is  necessary,  provided  the  embassy  has  been 
accomplished. 

We  are  sent  to  walk  over  that  inclined  path,  carrying 
through  it  that  light  which  has  been  entrusted  to  us. 
And  all  we  can  do  is  to  aid  one  another  on  the  path  to 
carry  this  Hght,  but  we  detain  and  push  one  another,  and 
put  out  our  light  and  that  of  others. 

If  we  do  not  look  upon  our  life  as  upon  an  embassy, 
there  is  no  Hfe,  but  only  a  hell.     I  must  remember,  not 


ON  THE   MEANING    OF   LIFE  463 

only  that  I  am  an  ambassador,  entrusted  with  some  work, 
but  also  that  I  am  an  ambassador  who  must  guard,  and 
uplift,  and  increase  himself.  Both  are  the  same :  one 
can  uplift  himself  only  by  doing  his  work,  and  by  uplift- 
ing and  increasing  oneself,  one  can  do  his  work. 

To  hve  in  godly  fashion  means  to  wish  what  God 
wishes ;  but  God  wishes  the  good  of  the  world ;  but  the 
good  of  the  world  is  obtained  by  increasing  love  in  it. 

To  live  in  godly  fashion  means  to  live  for  the  good  of 
self  as  not  separated  from  other  beings. 

Does  not  to  live  in  godly  fashion  mean  to  give  life  to 
others,  to  rouse  in  others  the  spiritual,  true  life  ? 

One  can  live  badly  only  with  lusts,  and  well  —  with  this 
alone:  with  goodness,  with  the  desire,  the  effort  to  be 
good,  better. 

My  life  is  not  mine,  —  cannot  have  my  good  for  its 
him,  —  but  his  who  sent  me,  and  its  aim  is  the  fuliil- 
meut  of  his  work.  Only  by  fulfilling  his  work  can  I 
obtain  the  good. 

You  know  that ;  but  for  me  it  is  so  important,  such  a 
joy,  that  I  rejoice  at  every  opportunity  to  repeat  it. 

The  aim  of  life  is  the  good.  The  good  is  only  in  serv- 
ing God.  Serving  God  is  in  the  increase  of  love  in  the 
world.  The  increase  of  love  in  the  world  is  obtained  only 
through  the  increase  and  manifestation  of  love  in  oneself. 
But  love  in  oneself  gives  us  that  greater  good  after  which 
we  strive. 

The  aim  of  life  is  as  little  the  reproduction  of  ones 
like,  the  continuation  of  the  species,  as  the  service  of  men, 
—  iust  as  little  the  service  of  God, 


464  ON   THE   MEANING   OF   LIFE 

To  reproduce  one's  like,  —  what  for  ?  To  serve  men  ? 
And  what  are  those  to  do  whom  we  shall  serve  ?  To 
serve  God  ?  Can  he  not  do  without  us  what  he  wants  ? 
But  he  can  want  nothing. 

If  he  commands  us  to  serve  him,  he  does  so  for  our 
own  good.  Life  can  have  no  other  aim  than  the  good, 
than  joy.     Only  this  aim,  joy,  is  fully  worthy  of  life. 

Kenunciation,  the  crossj  to  give  up  life,  —  all  this  is  for 
joy's  sake. 

The  joy  is  and  can  be  impaired  hy  nothing,  and  is  con- 
stant. 

Death  is  a  transition  to  new,  unexplored,  entirely  new, 
different,  greater  joy. 

There  are  springs  of  joy  which  never  run  dry :  the 
beauty  of  Nature,  of  animals,  of  men,  are  never  absent. 
In  prison,  —  the  beauty  of  the  beam,  the  fly,  the  sounds. 
The  chief  spring  is  love,  —  mine  for  people,  and  the  peo- 
ple's for  me. 

Beauty,  joy,  only  as  joy,  independently  of  the  good,  is 
disgusting.  I  made  this  clear,  and  gave  it  up.  The  good 
without  beauty  is  tormenting.  Only  the  union  of  the 
two,  no,  not  the  union,  but  beauty  as  the  crown  of  the 
good. 

Mill  says  that  humanity  will  get  a  greater  share  of  hap- 
piness when  every  man  will  pursue  his  own  happiness, 
under  the  condition  of  observing  the  rules  and  concUtions 
demanded  for  the  good  of  others,  than  when  man  will  set 
for  himself  as  his  only  aim  the  good  of  all  others. 

That  is  true,  only  that  by  the  good  of  each  individual 
we  must  understand  his  spiritual  good,  that  is,  his  agree- 
ment with  the  will  of  God,  or,  more  simply,  the  grati- 
fication of  the  demands  of  his  conscience  (reason  and 
love). 

Let  each  man  seek  the  kingdom  of  God  and  his  right- 


ON    THE   MEANING    OF    LIFE  465 

eousness,  let  him  put  his  life  into  this,  and  there  will 
result  the  greatest  happiness  for  all.  But  then  it  will  turn 
out  that  the  happiness  of  man  will  consist  in  observing 
those  rules  and  conditions  which  secure  the  greatest  good 
to  all  men,  that  is,  we  shall  get  precisely  what  Mill  denies. 

We  are  all  labourers  in  life,  charged  to  attend  to  the 
work  of  the  salvation  of  our  souls,  —  we  may  compare  it 
with  the  watching  of  the  fire  given  from  heaven  and 
kindled  on  the  hearth  of  my  body.  My  business  is  only 
to  watch  and  kindle  this  fire  within  me  (not  to  waste  the 
material  of  this  fire  on  anything  but  the  burning),  without 
thinking  of  what  will  burn  from  this  fire  or  how. 

It  is  not  hard  to  thresh  with  several  flails,  but  that 
things  should  go  well,  and  the  threshers  should  not  get 
mixed  (not  merely  threshing,  but  interfering  with  one 
another),  one  has  only  to  think  of  oneself,  one's  measure 
of  the  beat  on  which  to  strike.  But  the  moment  you 
think  of  others  and  look  at  them,  you  get  mixed.  Even 
so  it  is  in  life.  Think  only  of  yourself,  your  w^ork,  and 
the  work  is  this :  to  love,  to  increase  this  love  in  yourself, 
and  not  to  think  of  others,  of  the  consequences  of  your 
labour,  —  and  the  work  of  life  proceeds  fruitfully  and 
joyfully.  The  moment  you  think  of  what  you  are  pro- 
ducing, of  the  results  of  your  labour,  and  begin  to  measure 
it  with  these  results,  the  work  gets  mixed  up  and  comes  to  a 
stop,  and  there  is  the  consciousness  of  the  vanity  of  life. 

The  master  of  life  has  given  us  work,  to  each  one  indi- 
vidually, so  that  the  accomphshment  of  this  work  is  very 
fruitful.  He  himseK  will  utilize  and  direct  this  work, 
and  will  give  it  a  place  and  significance.  But  the 
moment  I  want  to  find  and  determine  a  place  for  it  and 
in  conformity  with  it  to  modify  it,  I  get  mixed,  see  the 
vanity  of  the  work,  and  am  in  despair.  My  business  is 
to  work,  and  he  knows  what  it  is  wanted  for,  and  how  to 
use  it.     Man  walks,  God  leads. 


466  ON   THE   MEANING   OF   LIFE 

One  work  is,  —  to  increase  love  in  myself.  I  am  a 
self -moving  force,  or  a  living  spade,  and  its  life  consists 
in  keeping  the  edges  clean  and  sharp,  and  then  it  will 
work,  and  the  work  will  be  needed.  Keep  it  sharp,  and 
sharpen  it  aU  the  time,  —  make  yourself  better  and  bet- 
ter. 

What  seemed  irrefutable  from  the  social  point  of  view 
appears  meaningless  from  the  Christian  point  of  view. 
This  change  is  due  to  the  change  of  aim  which  is  placed 
before  man.  The  Christian  teaching  puts  a  different  aim 
in  the  place  of  the  one  set  by  the  social  teaching. 

The  aim  which  Christianity  sets  to  people  is  not  the 
good  of  this  or  that  totality  of  men,  attained  by  the  ful- 
filment of  the  will  and  of  the  laws  of  this  totality,  but 
the  highest  good  of  all  men  and  of  the  whole  world, 
which  is  attainable  by  doing  the  will  and  keeping  the  law 
of  God. 

It  is  possible  to  think  that  we  can  live  for  God,  cociper- 
ate  with  the  estabhshment  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  mainly 
by  persuading  people  to  be  good,  to  refrain  from  offences, 
—  by  establishing  the  lives  of  other  men. 

This  is  a  delusion :  we  can  live  for  God  only  by  loving 
men,  by  manifesting  love,  infecting  others  with  love,  mak- 
ing them  believe  in  love. 

I  must  know  this  now  by  all  means,  and  I  decide  that 
it  is  not  necessary  to  arrange  anything  or  to  admonish 
people,  but  only  to  treat  them  with  love  and  kindness.  This 
is  the  strongest  means  for  establishing  the  kingdom  of 
God. 

Ko  proposition  has  so  obviously  been  verified  by  me 
through  experience  as  that  the  meaning  of  life  is  in  the 
increase  of  love.  As  long  as  I  remembered  this  and  lived 
by  it,  I  was  unceasingly  happy. 


ON   TUE   MEANING   OF   LIFE  467 

Our  life,  the  life  both  of  an  old  and  a  young  man,  is 
subject  to  the  possibility  of  an  instantaneous  cessation, 
and  so  we  must  not  put  off  the  fulfilment  of  our  life's 
work,  —  serving  God  and  men,  —  but  we  must  live  and 
serve  God  and  men  at  once,  every  minute  of  our  Hfe. 
But  serving  God  and  men  consists  in  the  increase  of  love 
in  ourselves  and  in  others,  and  this  we  can  always  do 
under  any  conditions. 

It  is  man's  task  to  fulfil  in  this  life  that  for  which  he 
has  been  sent  into  it  by  God,  from  whom  he  has  proceeded 
and  to  whom  he  goes.  What  God  wants  of  man  is  that  he 
should  expend  his  life,  his  body,  in  order  to  serve  the  good 
of  the  world  and  the  good  of  all  men  and  of  all  beings. 
This  a  man  can  do  by  renouncing  his  animal  personality 
and  evoking  in  himself  love  for  men  and  for  all  beings. 

In  man  there  is  a  spiritual,  immortal,  divine  essence 
and  his  animal  personality.  If  man  thinks  that  his  life 
is  in  his  body,  he  will  serve  the  body,  will  ruin  his  soul, 
and  will  not  accomphsh  his  task ;  but  if  he  recognizes  as 
himself  his  divine,  spiritual  essence  and  lives  for  it  in 
godly  fashion,  and  wishes  for  it  what  God  wishes,  that  is, 
not  his  good,  but  the  good  of  all  beings,  he  will  fulfil  his 
task  and  will  receive  the  true  good. 


to^ 


If  you  have  any  power  of  activity,  let  it  be  one  of  love ; 
if  you  have  not,  and  you  are  weak,  let  your  weakness  be 
that  of  love. 

As  an  athlete  attends  to  the  increase  of  his  muscles, 
so  you  must  attend  to  the  increase  of  love  or,  at  least, 
to  the  diminution  of  malice  and  lying,  and  there  will  be  a 
full,  joyous  life. 

I  just  thought  that  I  must  remember  that  the  time  for 
the  fulfilment  of  the  work  set  for  me  in  this  world  la 


468  ON    THE    MEANING   OF    LIFE 

on  the  decline,  and  that  it  is  a  sin  to  waste  it  unproduc- 
tively,  that  is,  not  in  the  service  of  God's  work. 

No  matter  how  much  I  have  reflected  on  the  question 
of  the  relation  of  God's  work  to  the  internal  perfection  of 
love,  I  cannot  get  away  from  that  proposition  that  the 
problem  of  life  —  the  execution  of  the  divine  work  of  the 
destruction  of  disunion  —  is  equal  to  an  increase  of  love, 
and  that  this  work  can  be  accomphshed  only  through 
works  in  which  there  takes  place  an  inner  perfection  in 
love. 

I  write  and  I  think  as  follows . 

The  aim  of  life  is  the  permeation  of  all  its  phenomena 
by  love,  —  a  slow,  gradual  transformation  of  an  evil  life 
into  one  that  is  good,  —  the  creation  of  the  true  life  (for 
the  true  life  is  only  a  life  of  love),  —  the  birth  of  the  true 
life,  that  is,  of  the  life  of  love. 

"  What  is  the  essence  of  that  work  which  ought  to  pro- 
ceed in  parallel  lines  with  a  strictly  regulated  life  ? "  you 
ask. 

The  work  which  you  are  called  to  do  in  hfe  is  of  a  two- 
fold nature,  though  it  is  attained  by  one  and  the  same 
action :  the  external  work  consists  in  this,  that  with  our 
life  we  should  cooperate  in  the  establishment  of  the  king- 
dom of  God  upon  earth,  that  is,  the  substitution  of  con- 
cord, mutual  aid,  and  union  for  enmity,  struggle,  and  dis- 
union, —  a  condition  when  all  the  spears  should  be  forged 
into  ploughshares,  etc.  We  can  contribute  to  this  by 
truthfulness  in  words  and  deeds.  The  internal  work 
consists  in  perfection,  in  the  approach  to  God :  "  Be  ye 
perfect  even  as  your  Father  in  heaven  is  perfect."  But  in 
order  that  we  may  constantly  improve,  it  is  necessary  to 
increase  love  in  ourselves,  that  is,  widen  the  circle  of  love 
in  ourselves,  to  love,  not  because  it  is  agreeable  to  us,  but 
as  God  loves  his  creatures,  in  order  to  wish  and  offer  them 
the    good.     But  in  order   to  increase  love   in  ourselves, 


ON   THE   MEANING   OF   LIFE  469 

we  must  not  interfere  with  its  manifestation  and  growth. 
It  always  strives  of  itself  after  increase.  What  interferes 
with  the  manifestation  of  love  is  the  offences.  Now,  the 
offences  consist  in  regarding  as  the  good  and  as  the  aim 
of  one's  hfe  the  good  of  the  animal  personality,  and  not 
the  increase  of  love.  The  increase  of  love  is  that  action 
by  means  of  which  both  aims  are  attained :  the  coopera- 
tion in  the  estabHshment  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  the 
attainment  of  the  highest  perfection.  .  .  .  Such  a  life  has 
a  greater  probability  even  of  an  earthly  happiness  than  a 
worldly  life,  which  has  for  its  aim  the  good  of  the  animal 
personality.  Such  a  life  does  not  exclude  all  the  most 
accessible  joys,  which  are  furnished  by  Nature,  and  by 
merriment,  and  singing,  and  friendship,  and  communion 
with  men  and  animals. 

Life  for  oneself  is  torment,  for  one  wants  to  live  for  an 
illusion,  for  what  is  not,  and  this  not  only  fails  to  be 
happy,  but  cannot  be  at  all.  It  is  the  same  as  clothing 
and  feeding  a  shadow.  Life  is  only  outside  ourselves,  in 
the  service  of  others,  and  not  in  the  service  of  relatives 
and  beloved  persons,  —  this  is  again  for  self,  —  but  in  the 
service  of  those  you  do  not  love,  —  better  still  in  the  serv- 
ice of  your  enemies. 

The  whole  life  which  I  lead  is  only  a  tdtonnement ; 
but  Hfe  ought  to  be  built  firmly  on  this :  to  seek,  desire, 
do  nothing  but  good  to  people,  —  to  love  and  increase 
love  in  them,  to  diminish  enmity  in  them.  The  good  of 
men  ?  What  is  the  good  ?  This,  —  love.  I  know  this  in 
myself,  and  so  wish  men  nothing  but  this,  and  work 
for  nothing  else.  To  live  boldly  by  tliis,  and  not  by 
groping,  means  to  forget  that  you  are  a  Eussian,  a  lord, 
a  peasant,  married,  a  father,  and  so  forth,  and  only  to 
remember  this :  before  you  is  a  live  man  ;  as  long  as 
you  live,  you  can  do  what  vsdll  give  him  and  you  the 


470  ON    THE    MEANING    OF    LIFE 

good,  and  do  the  will  of  God,  of  him  who  sent  yon 
into  the  world,  —  you  can  unite  yourself  with  him  in 
love. 

I  have  experienced  the  joyous  feeling  of  transferring 
the  meaning  of  life  to  a  desire  to  serve  God  by  means  of 
serving  men,  —  a  desire  for  the  good  for  all  men  with 
whom  I  meet. 

Such  a  life  is  possible  and  joyous. 

Ask  yourself  well  which  of  the  two  you  want :  that  you 
be  glorified  at  once,  that  you  may  see  the  fruits  of  your 
works,  but  that  douljt  in  your  work  be  possible  ?  or,  that 
you  should  be  misunderstood  and  scorned  to  the  end, 
but  that  your  work  should  certainly  be  the  work  of 
God? 

How  terrible  it  is  to  forget  God !  But  this  is  done 
imperceptibly.  Works  for  God  give  way  to  works  for 
men,  for  glory,  and  then  for  oneself,  for  one's  bad  seK. 
And  when  you  rub  against  this  badness,  you  want  to 
raise  yourself  again. 

Frequently  one  wastes  his  spiritual  powers  for  nothing. 
That  is  a  sin.  These  powers  are  given  for  serving.  They 
ought  to  be  spent  on  nothing  else ;  but,  as  it  is,  out  of 
decency,  out  of  ambition,  out  of  apathy,  you  waste  your- 
self in  such  a  way  that  no  strength  and  no  time  is  left  for 
serving. 

Whether  you  have  done  what  you  ought  to  receives  an 
enormous  importance,  because  the  only  meaning  of  your 
life  is  in  this,  whether  in  the  short  period  of  life  given  to 
you  you  are  doing  what  is  wanted  of  you  by  him  or  it 
that  sent  you  into  life. 

Are  you  doing  the  right  thing  ? 


ON   THE    MEANING    OF    LIFE  471 

Tlie  pagan  conception  tells  you  that  your  life  is  your 
carnal  possession ;  Christianity  tells  you  that  your  life  is 
that  vineyard  which  was  given  to  the  husbandmen  with 
all  the  trees  and  the  well  and  fruit,  only  that  the  husband- 
men, making  use  of  the  vineyard,  might  give  its  fruits  to 
the  owner. 

We  are  given  but  a  short  time  to  stay  here.  JSTow,  now, 
we  shall  all  be  taken  back  there,  all  at  once  or  singly, — 
some  are  being  already  taken  away  in  our  sight,  —  and  we 
have  the  choice :  to  pass  this  short,  indefinite  period  in  a 
joyful  manner,  abandoning  ourselves  to  our  innate  feeling 
of  compassion  and  love  for  one  another,  or  to  quarrel,  con- 
tend, fight,  and  with  all  cruelties  to  establish  an  order  of 
things  which,  we  know,  will  not  last  even  a  few  years,  and 
which  we  do  not  approve  of ;  to  pass  the  moment  given  to 
us,  loving  one  another  and  practising  mutual  love  and  kind- 
ness, or  to  use  all  our  strength  for  the  purpose  of  torment- 
ing and  infuriating  one  another  as  much  as  possible  during 
this  short  space  of  time,  and  with  malice,  reproaches,  and 
curses  to  be  taken  back  whence  they  let  us  out. 

In  the  comprehension  of  truth,  that  is,  of  what  is 
wanted  of  you  by  him  who  does  his  work  through  you, 
only  in  this  does  your  life  consist. 

Seek  the  kingdom  of  God  and  his  righteousness,  and  the 
rest  shall  be  added  unto  you. 

In  caring  for  worldly  matters,  for  what  to  you  seems  to 
be  necessary  for  securing  your  carnal  personality  and  the 
lives  of  other  people  who  are  bound  with  you,  you  will 
obtain,  neither  the  good  of  this  personality,  nor  the  good 
of  the  other  people,  though  you  put  it  before  you  as  your 
aim ;  but  in  caring  for  the  truth  of  the  kingdom  of  God, 
which  is  obtained  by  recognizing  and  fulfilling  that  degree 
of  truth  which  is  revealed  to  you,  you  attain  both  your 
own  good  and  that  of  the  other  people,  and  fulfil  what  has 


472  ON    THE    MEANING    OF    LIFE 

been  implanted  in  your  reason  and  your  heart.     How  can 
you  help  doing  this  ? 

Men  have  assured  themselves  that  this  is  not  important, 
that  something  else  is  important.  But  there  is  nothing 
more  important  in  the  world  than  performing  the  truth, 
which  is  revealed  to  man. 

Nothing  but  this  one  thing  is  needed,  namely,  what  we 
neglect,  —  the  fulfilment  in  little  deeds  of  the  truth  wliich 
we  know.  The  fulfilment  of  the  truth  by  every  individ- 
ual man  is  the  most  important  work. 

Man's  hfe  of  suffering,  which  is  liable  to  be  severed  at 
any  second,  not  to  be  a  coarse  sneer,  must  have  such  a 
meaning  that  the  significance  of  life  is  not  impaired  by  its 
long  or  short  duration. 

If  a  man  knew  for  certain  that  his  life  comes  to  an  end 
with  this  life,  what  would  he  do  in  the  decline  of  his 
years,  in  which  I  am  ?  All  the  present  afiairs  have  already 
passed  into  other,  younger  hands,  so  what  is  he  to  do  ? 

Only  when  you  believe  that  life  does  not  end  here, 
there  is  left  an  always  most  important  and  always  inter- 
esting and  necessary  work  over  one's  soul,  which  does  not 
perish,  but  will  be  necessary  there. 

Of  late  I  have  frequently  thought  of  one  long  known 
consideration,  which  with  especial  vividness  passes  now 
through  my  brain  and  braces  me  up  ;  it  is  this  :  to  express 
in  the  simplest  and  clearest  form  the  meaning,  essence,  and 
aim  of  life,  I  should  say,  as  it  is  said  in  John  vi.  38, 
and  especially  39  :  to  increase  in  me,  to  bring  to  the  high- 
est possible  divineness  that  spark,  that  comprehension, 
which  is  given  and  entrusted  to  me,  as  a  child  is  given  to 
a  nurse.  This  definition  of  the  meaning  of  life  is  broader 
than  any  other,  —  it  includes  all  the  others. 


ON   THE    MEANING    OF    LIFE  473 

Now,  what  is  needed,  in  order  to  fulfil  this,  to  raise  up 
this  child  ?  Not  luxury,  but  work,  struggle,  privations, 
sufferings,  humiliations,  persecutions,  precisely  what  is 
many  times  said  in  the  Gospel.  And  it  is  this  which  we 
need  that  is  sent  to  us  in  the  most  varied  forms,  both  in 
small  and  in  large  proportions.  If  only  we  know  how  to 
accept  it  all  in  the  proper  manner,  as  necessary,  and  so 
joyous  work,  and  not  as  something  annoying  which 
impairs  our  so  well-arranged  life. 

Generally  the  following  mistake  is  made.  They  say : 
"Here  are  circumstances  which  impair  or  threaten  to 
impair  our  good  life ;  we  must  as  quickly  as  possible 
obviate  and  overcome  these  circumstances,  in  order  that 
we  may  be  able  to  continue  our  good  life."  In  reality  we 
ought  to  look  upon  the  matter  in  a  directly  opposite  way : 
"  Here  was  a  life  which  we  established  with  great  internal 
struggle  and  labours,  and  this  life  satisfied  our  moral 
demands  ;  but  now  there  appear  new  circumstances,  which 
put  forth  new  moral  demands :  come  now,  let  us  in 
the  best  manner  possible  respond  to  these  demands." 
These  circumstances  are  not  an  accident  which  can 
be  removed,  but  the  demands  of  new  forms  of  life,  in 
which  I  must  try  myself  and  for  which  I  must  prepare 
myself,  as  I  prepared  myself  for  the  preceding  form  of 
life. 

God,  according  to  my  conception,  needs  no  sacrifices. 
All  that  God  needs  is  that  we  should  keep  and  increase 
that  talent,  that  divine  essence  which  is  given  to  us, 
which  is  entrusted  to  us,  as  the  child  is  to  the  nurse, 
understanding  by  this  talent  not  some  mental  increase 
or  culture,  but  only  the  increase  of  our  love  for  God 
and  his  creation,  so  that  a  man  who  fulfils  this  work  of 
God  will  always  inevitably  fulfil  everything  else,  and 
will,  without  knowing  it,  be  in  many  ways  useful  to  all 
men. 


474  ON.  THE    MEANING    OF    LIFE 

Life  is  given  me  only  under  the  condition  of  doing 
works  of  love.  Life  is  given  me  as  a  talent,  for  its  in- 
crease ;  but  life  cannot  be  increased  otherwise  than  by- 
works  of  love.  jMy  true  life  is  only  the  one  which  is 
increased  by  me.  Thus,  by  not  keeping  this  life,  but  ex- 
pending it,  I  acquire  the  true,  the  eternal  life. 

The  main  thing  is  to  understand  what  is  said  (Matt. 
XXV.),  that  our  life  is  not  given  us  for  our  enjoyment  or 
pleasure,  but  that  we  are  slaves,  tools,  organs  of  God,  pre- 
determiued  to  do  his  work  (but  an  apparently  unnoticed 
work,  which  you  will  do,  may  be  a  thousand  times  more 
important  than  loud  works,  which  are  known  to  us),  and 
if  we  do  this  work,  we  are  happy,  no  matter  where  or  in 
what  circumstances  we  may  be,  whether  well  or  ill,  old 
or  young.  But  his  work  is  this :  to  increase  the  talent, 
the  divine  spark,  entrusted  to  me ;  now,  it  canuot  be  in- 
creased otherwise  than  by  loving  our  neighbours  and  serving 
them,  as  indeed  it  says  at  the  end  of  that  chapter. 

To  be  firm  and  not  lose  courage  it  is  necessary,  above 
all,  to  understand  clearly  and  not  to  forget  the  one  rational 
and  joyous  meaning  of  our  life,  which  is,  not  only  that 
we  should  carry  through  this  life,  without  putting  it  out, 
that  spark  of  divine  love,  which  is  implanted  in  us  and 
forms  our  soul,  but  also  that  we  should  fan  it  with  all 
our  might,  in  order  that  it  may  be  carried  into  the  other 
life,  not  as  a  spark,  but  as  a  flame. 

Nobody  can  fail  to  recognize  that  we  have  all  come 
from  and  are  dependent  on  one  and  the  same  principle, 
which  Christ  calls  the  Father,  and  that  the  meaning  of 
our  life  consists  in  doing  his  will,  the  will  of  this  principle, 
and  in  using  our  life  for  the  very  work  for  which  it  is 
given  to  us.  But  this  work,  we  all  know  indubitably, 
consists  in  this,  that  we  should  with  every  day  and  hour 


ON    THE    MEANING    OF   LIFE  475 

of  this  life  become  better,  that  is,  more  self-sacrificing 
and  loving,  and  participate  in  making  the  world  at  least 
a  graiu  better  than  what  it  was  when  we  entered  into 
life.  We  must  ourselves  become  better  and  make  the 
world  better  ;  I  believe  all  agree  that  in  this  lies  the  prob- 
lem of  man's  life.  Everything  else,  if  this  be  agreed  upon, 
may  be  yielded,  or,  at  least,  we  may  ask  permission  not 
to  express  any  opinion  about  the  Trinity,  or  about  revolu- 
tion, or  about  the  Pope,  or  about  Marx,  and  so  forth.  "  I 
do  not  ask  of  you  any  belief  in  anything,"  we  may  say, 
"  except  that  we  must  try  to  become  better  and  make  the 
world  better." 

That  the  aim  of  life  is  self-perfection,  the  perfection 
of  the  immortal  soul,  that  this  is  the  only  aim  of  man's 
life,  is  just,  if  for  no  other  reason  than  because  every 
other  aim  is  senseless  in  view  of  death. 

These  last  days,  especially  yesterday,  I  have  been  feel- 
ing and  applying  to  life  the  consciousness  of  this,  that  the 
aim  of  life  is  nothing  but  being  perfect  as  the  Father, 
doing  the  same  that  he  does,  that  he  wishes  us  to  do, 
that  is,  to  love  ;  that  love  should  guide  us  in  minutes 
of  the  most  energetic  activity,  and  that  we  should  breathe 
it  in  a  moment  of  the  greatest  weakness.  The  moment 
something  is  hard  and  painful,  we  need  only  remember 
this,  and  everything  hard  and  painful  disappears,  and 
nothing  but  what  is  joyful  is  left. 

To  a  man  who  seriously,  sincerely  makes  use  of  his 
intellect  it  is  evident  that  all  aims  are  closed  to  him  ;  only 
one  is  rational :  to  live  for  the  gratification  of  the  de- 
mands of  God,  of  one's  conscience,  one's  higher  nature 
(it  is  all  one  and  the  same).  To  express  it  in  time, — 
to  live  in  such  a  manner  as  to  prepare  one's  soul  for 
the  transition  into  a  better  world ;  to  express  it  pre- 
cisely  outside  of   time,  —  to   unite    one's   life  with    its 


476  ON    THE    MEANING    OF    LIFE 

extra-temporal  principle,  with  the  good,  with  love,  with 
God. 

I  am  afraid  of  one  thing,  —  lest  this  for  me  so  powerful 
and  beneficently  acting  consciousness  of  the  one  rational- 
ity and  liberty,  of  the  joyousness  of  life  in  God,  be  dulled 
and  lose  its  liberating  action,  which  elevates  me  above 
the  petty  cares  of  life.  Oh,  that  it  were  so  for  all !  And 
always  so  1  Last  night  I  reflected  in  this  light  on  various 
phenomena  of  hfe,  and  I  felt  such  joy  and  happiness.  I 
will  wait  for  the  examination,  —  I  will  prepare  myself 
for  it. 

Last  night  I  thought  in  a  dream  that  the  shortest  ex- 
pression of  the  meaning  of  life  is  this :  the  world  moves, 
is  being  perfected ;  it  is  man's  task  to  contribute  to  this 
motion  and  to  submit  to  and  cooperate  with  it. 

To  serve  God  and  men,  but  how  ?  With  what  ?  Per- 
haps there  is  not  this  possibihty  ?  It  is  not  true,  —  this 
possibility  is  always  given  to  you,  —  to  become  better. 

There  is  but  one  meaning  of  life :  self-perfection,  —  to 
improve  one's  soul.  Be  ye  perfect  even  as  your  Father 
in  heaven  is  perfect. 

When  you  are  oppressed,  when  something  torments 
you,  remember  that  in  life  you  alone  are  the  life,  and  imme- 
diately you  will  feel  easier  and  happier.  As  a  rich  man 
rejoices  collecting  his  wealth,  so  you  rejoice,  if  only  you 
have  placed  your  life  in  this  alone.  In  order  to  attain  this 
there  are  no  obstacles.  Everything  which  appears  as  grief, 
as  an  obstacle  in  life,  is  a  broad  step  which  places  itself 
of  its  own  accord  under  your  feet  in  order  that  you  may 
rise. 

Each  of  us  is  a  light,  a  divine  essence,  love,  the  son  of 
God,  enclosed  in  the  body,  in  barriers,  in  a  coloured  Ian- 


ON   THE    MEANING    OF    LIFE  477 

tern,  which  we  have  still  farther  coloured  with  our  passions 
and  our  habits,  so  that  everything  which  we  see  we  see 
only  through  this  lantern.  We  cannot  rise  to  look  above 
it ;  above  there  is  just  such  a  glass,  also  painted  by  us, 
through  wliich  we  see  God.  There  is  one  thing  we  can 
do,  and  that  is,  not  to  look  through  the  glass,  but  to  con- 
centrate ourselves  upon  ourselves,  to  recognize  our  light, 
and  to  make  it  flame  up.  This  is  the  one  salvation  from 
the  deceptions  of  life,  from  sufferings,  from  temptations. 
And  this  is  a  joy,  and  always  possible. 

I  imagined  vividly  what  a  joyous,  calm,  and  absolutely 
free  life  it  would  be,  if  we  gave  it  entirely  to  God,  that  is, 
if  in  all  circumstances  of  hfe  we  sought  but  this :  to  do 
what  he  wants,  —  to  do  it  in  disease,  in  insult,  in  humili- 
ation, in  suffering,  in  all  offences,  and  in  death,  which  then 
is  only  a  change  of  destination. 

And  weakness,  and  non-fulfilment  of  what  God  wants  ? 
What  then  ?  Nothing :  a  return  to  the  consciousness  of 
this,  that  life  is  only  in  this  fulfilment.  Minutes  of  weak- 
ness are  the  intervals  between  the  letters  of  life,  not  life. 

The  main  thing  is,  that  we  are  labourers,  from  whom 
the  result  of  the  labour  is  hidden,  who  are  not  permitted 
to  make  use  of  the  work.  One  thing  is  possible :  the 
participation  in  the  work,  the  uniting  of  our  interests  with 
those  of  the  master. 

It  is  remarkable  how  this  last  deduction  at  which  one 
arrives  was  definitely  and  in  this  precise  form  expressed 
by  Christ.  It  is  not  even  a  comparison,  but  a  fact.  The 
whole  life  of  men  is  work :  work  for  the  master  (factory 
hands  and  others),  the  work  of  ploughing  and  sowing,  of 
the  harvest  and  again  of  sowing,  the  improvement  of  the 
soil,  of  the  breeds,  of  the  buildings,  intellectual  inventions, 
—  all  that  is  not  for  oneself,  but  for  the  use  of  all,  and  in 
all  that  there  is  a  good  in  the  work  itself.     Such  is  the 


478  ON    THE    MEANING    OF   LIFE 

whole  of  life.  "We  are  permitted  only  to  enjoy  the  good 
of  the  work  itself.  We  are  also  permitted  to  transfer  our 
interest  to  the  interest  of  others,  outside  ourselves,  to 
the  interest  of  the  master  or  the  work ;  and  this  trans- 
ference of  the  interest,  this  liberation  of  self  from  the 
interest  of  the  perishing  self,  is  possible  only  through 
work. 

So  it  is  in  the  labours  of  life.  And  just  so  it  is  in  all 
life,  if  we  look  upon  our  whole  temporal,  carnal  life,  upon 
the  direction  of  our  will  in  this  life  (and  we  cannot  look 
in  any  other  way  upon  it),  as  upon  labour  for  the  work  of 
God,  or,  more  briefly,  for  God.  Only  if  we  pass  our  whole 
life  with  the  purpose  of  fulfilhng  the  will  of  God  and  of 
establishing  the  kingdom  of  truth,  wherever  we  see  it, 
and  in  the  observance  of  the  truth,  in  humility  and  love, 
even  where  we  do  not  see  it,  —  can  we,  in  the  work  for 
God,  renounce  our  own  interest,  in  order  to  find  an  inter- 
est in  the  work  for  God.  To  say  that  you  will  make  use 
of  this  work  in  the  future  is  risky  and  inexact :  it  is  im- 
possible to  say  the  rest.  And  why  should  it  be  ?  The 
participation  in  the  work  gives  enough  of  the  good. 
The  moment  you  begin  to  take  part  in  it,  you  feel  the 
good ;  what,  then,  will  happen  if  you  give  yourself  en- 
tirely over  to  this  work,  and  make  a  habit  of  it  ?  Then 
the  true  good  will  be  so  great  that  it  will  not  be  necessary 
to  imagine  any  other  in  the  future. 

Yes,  this  is  a  prayer  which  I  will  write  down  on  my 
finger-nail :  Eemember  that  you  are  a  labourer  in  God's 
work. 


I  have  been  thinking  all  the  time  of  the  harm  of  select- 
ing an  external  aim  for  life.  "  Seek  the  kingdom  of  God 
and  his  righteousness,  and  the  rest  shall  be  added  unto 
you."  Sailor,  be  guided  by  the  compass  which  is  on  thy 
ship,  —  a  tiny  needle  which  is  a  thousand  times  smaller 
than  the  ship,  —  and  not  by  any  visible  object,  not  even 


ON    THE    MEANING   OF    LIFE  479 

by  the  stars :  everything  is  deceptive  but  what  is  within 
you.  Do  not  trouble  yourself  about  writing  an  important 
work,  nor  about  this,  that  men  may  learn  the  truth,  nor 
that  you  may  remain  pure  in  the  eyes  of  men ;  trouble 
yourself  only  about  doing  the  will  of  him  who  sent  you. 
But  the  will  of  him  who  sent  you  is  that  nothing  should 
perish  of  what  he  gave  you,  but  that,  on  the  contrary, 
everything  possible  should  be  resuscitated,  brought  back 
to  hfe,  expanded,  purified. 

It  is  true  that  thy  work  and  thy  power  have  been  en- 
trusted to  me.  Now,  thy  work  consists  in  manifesting 
thyself  in  me  and  in  the  world.  In  this  alone  does  my 
life  consist. 

It  is  true  that  in  me  is  thy  power,  given  to  me  for 
the  purpose  of  fulfilling  thy  work.  But  thy  work 
consists  for  me  in  increasing  thy  power  in  me  and  in  the 
world. 

I  throw  a  chip  into  the  whirlpool  of  the  brook,  and 
watch  it  circling  around.  A  steamer  is  only  a  httle 
bigger,  but  still  such  a  chip ;  the  earth  is  a  mote,  a  thou- 
sand years  are  a  minute.  Everything  is  nothing,  every- 
thing material  is  nothing ;  the  one  real,  indubitable  thing 
is  the  law  by  which  everything  is  accomplished,  both 
great  and  small,  —  the  will  of  God. 

A  compositor  who  does  not  know  the  language  sets 
type  better  in  that  he  does  not  guess  at  the  meaning  in 
his  own  way.  Even  so  we  must  live,  without  guessing  at 
the  meaning  of  what  we  are  doing,  —  not  guessing  at  the 
work  which  we  suppose  God  needs,  but  doing  one  thing 
after  another  according  to  what  God  commands,  —  setting 
letter  after  letter.  Not  I,  but  he,  has  given  a  meaning  to 
the  whole. 


480  ON    THE    MEANING   OF    LIFE 

lu  order  to  know  the  will  of  the  Father,  we  must  know 
his  true,  fundamental  will.  The  son's  will  always  coin- 
cides with  the  Father's. 

There  will  always  be  left  one  mystery  for  man,  only 
one :  What  do  I  live  for  ?  There  is  but  one  rational 
answer :  Because  God  wants  it.  Why  does  he  want  it  ? 
This  is  a  secret,  and  this  secret  is  covered  only  by  the 
belief  in  God,  by  the  belief  that  he,  who  is  good,  has  done 
this  for  my  good. 

I  have  thought  vividly  and  with  joy  of  this,  that  my 
life  and,  so  I  conclude,  the  hfe  of  everything  is  the  power 
of  God,  the  whole  power  of  life,  which  passes  through  me, 
through  a  (hmited  and  organic)  part  of  all,  and  I  can 
allow  this  power  to  pass  through  me,  or  I  may  try  to 
check  it.  My  whole  role  in  life  is  this :  I  cannot  check 
it,  but  I  can  try  to  do  so. 

The  life  of  the  world  presents  itself  to  me  like  this :  a 
liquid,  or  gas,  or  light,  is  streaming  in  through  numberless 
tubes  of  various  form.  This  light  is  the  whole  power  of 
life,  God.  These  tubes  are  we,  all  the  beings.  Some 
tubes  are  entirely  immovable,  others  move  a  little,  others 
again  more,  and,  finally,  we  are  very  mobile  tubes.  We 
can  let  the  hght  through  completely,  or  we  may  bar  it  for 
a  time. 

What  we  call  our  life,  our  personal  life,  is  the  ability 
to  cross  the  hght,  —  not  to  let  it  through ;  but  the  true 
life  is  the  ability  to  stand  in  such  a  way  as  to  let  the 
light  through  completely,  without  barring  it.  But  when 
a  man  takes  up  this  position,  the  motion  of  his  life  comes 
to  an  end.  It  ends  when  a  man  begins  to  take  up  this 
position.  The  motion  of  life  ends,  and  then  a  man  feels 
that  he  has  done  everything  which  he  ought  to  do,  only 
when  he  has  removed  himself  as  though  he  did  not  exist. 
When  a  man  recognizes  this  negation  of  his  personal  exist- 


ON   THE    MEANING    OF    LIFE  481 

ence,  he  transfers  his  life  into  what  passes  through  him, 
into  God. 

I  wanted  to  express  more  clearly  in  words,  what  is  true, 
that  there  is  in  me  God's  power,  which  does  the  work  of 
God ;  then  I  convinced  myself  that  this  is  unnecessary. 
It  is  enough  that  I  am  not  I,  but  the  power  of  God  acting 
in  me.  And  so  it  says  in  John  v.  19 :  "  Then  answered 
Jesus  and  said  unto  them,  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you, 
The  Son  can  do  nothing  of  himself,  but  what  he  seeth  the 
Father  do :  for  what  things  soever  he  doeth,  these  also 
doeth  the  Son  likewise." 

What  to  us  appears  as  the  motion  of  our  personal  life 
is  the  motion  of  our  form  of  life  when  we  stand  at  an 
angle  to  the  direction  of  God's  will.  But  if  we  stand  in 
the  direction  of  God's  will,  it  passes  through  us,  no  longer 
moving  us,  and  then  the  illusion  disappears,  and  we 
recognize  that  we,  our  life,  is  nothing  but  the  power  of 
God.  Then  there  presents  itself  the  necessity  of  transfer- 
ring our  consciousness  from  the  integument  of  the  form 
into  the  force  of  its  direction.  However,  this  difficulty  is 
overcome  of  itself,  and  the  question  of  immortality  and  of 
the  future  life  is  set  aside.  The  consciousness  of  life  is 
transferred  from  the  moving  form  into  the  source  of  power, 
into  the  eternal,  infinite  will  of  God  itself.  From  the  con- 
sciousness of  form  I  have  passed  to  the  consciousness  of 
life  itself.  So  how  can  I  doubt  that  what  alone  exists, 
has  been  and  will  be,  —  that  it  will  not  die  ? 

I  am  conscious  of  myself  as  of  the  power  of  life,  which 
passes  through  me :  the  motion  of  my  life  is  the  wavering 
of  this  form,  which  stood  at  an  angle  to  the  direction  of 
the  power  and  which  slowly  took  up  a  position  in  its 
direction.  The  axis  of  the  direction  is  established,  the 
motion  stops,  the  carnal,  personal  life  comes  to  an  end,  I 
pass  into  the  power  which  goes  through  me. 

But  what  is  this  infinite  whole  power  ?     An  eternal 


482  ON   THE    MEANING    OF    LIFE 

secret,  and  we  need  not  know  any  further.  All  I  know 
is  that  death  is  not  terrible  to  me  with  it.  "  Into  thy 
hands  I  commend  my  spirit."  The  individualization, 
which  was  presented  as  the  form  through  which  I  passed, 
comes  to  an  end,  and  I  unite  with  the  all.  I  began  lately 
to  feel  that  when  I  die  I  shall  not  die  at  all,  but  shall 
live  in  everything  else. 


THE   END. 


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